Linda Ellen – Historical Romance Author

Linda Mattingly Bullock, whose pen name is Linda Ellen, writes clean historical romance in a variety of eras, rich with local history, joy, heartache, and real life. She began her writing career with a series of novels based on the true story of her parents’ tempestuous romance in the 1930s. That book, entitled Once in a While, won the 2014 Lyra Award in the romance category. Born and raised in Louisville, KY, Linda resides there with Steve, her husband of thirty-eight years. They attend Evangel World Prayer Center, and she is the office manager of their large prison ministry. When not writing or working on promoting her novels, she enjoys spending time with her husband, three sons, daughter, and a plethora of grandchildren.

In her own words:

I’m a Louisville native and am very proud of our city. A voracious reader, I remember when I was a child, my mom would read storybooks aloud to me. The expressions and nuances she would use as she read made the stories come alive. No doubt, it ignited a fervent love within me for the written word! As a youngster, I would ride my bike five blocks to the Crescent Hill Library to check out books. As a teen, I read a lot of Harlequin romances, and in my twenties, I amassed a collection of over 500 historical romance novels—so many that my husband built me special shelves to house them all, lol. (I have since given all of those away). I love reading fiction, but also biographies, history, and Christian books. In my thirties, I read a book called Julie by Catherine Marshall, the author of Christy, where the heroine miraculously survives a sweeping flash flood caused by a dam breaking upstream from her town. That long brilliantly written scene—the heroine literally rides a large log as it is swept along in the torrent—has stuck in my mind for years, and I try to make my action scenes as riveting and memorable as that. I don’t know if I succeed, but I sure give it a whack.

My writing career began when I started penning articles for the Southwest Reporter newspaper, and then by crafting fanfiction for the Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman TV show. After twenty-eight short stories and four full-length fan-fiction novels (the longest one over 249k words), over which I labored for perfection, I felt ready to embark on novels I could market.

Choosing to use my parents’ real love story as a basis, I turned it into a romance book entitled Once in a While (that’s their images on the cover), which begins in 1937 with the historical Great Flood of ’37. An interesting little tidbit about the title Once In A While: it was actually taken from a popular song by the Benny Goodman orchestra. Another interesting fact regarding the book is that I was the first to use the Great Flood of ‘37 in a fiction novel, which led the Courier to do an article on us.

Once in a While is an epic book, nearly 500 pages long, and the first twelve chapters deal with the flood and how it affects the characters in the story. Then once the waters recede, my hero and heroine court and fall in love—until a lie causes a tragic misunderstanding and tears them apart for a number of years. They get back together at the end of the book, and The Bold Venture (Book 2), picks up where the first leaves off, encompassing the years 1941-1954. Then book 3, Almost as Much, picks up one year later and follows the couple through some rough times, ending in 1957. Once this series, which I called the Cherished Memories series, was finished, I looked around for a new project.

My second series is called Soldiers of Swing, and it follows the lives and loves of three WWII soldiers who are stationed stateside. I wanted a way to showcase famous local landmarks and places in and near Louisville, KY. In the first book, Her Blue-Eyed Sergeant, I featured Fort Knox, wanting to do a little bragging about the fort since it has become a household word and of course houses the world famous Gold Vault. I also featured our local USO since I found out that the War Department used ours as the model for all of the USOs after representatives from Washington made a trip here to tour it.

I started researching and came across so many interesting details and anecdotes which made the stories just flow right along. The second book of that series, Her Blue-Eyed Corporal, involves the Charlestown Indiana Army Ammunition Plant. Wow! What a fascinating place! That one touches on true historical details regarding Nazi spies and attempted sabotage. Then the third book, Her Blue-Eyed Lieutenant, centers on an army air force pilot who is eventually stationed at our local Bowman Field and includes many delicious, little-known nuggets. 🙂

My next project was inspired by one of our amazing local treasures—Riverside, The Farnsley-Moremen Landing. I used its locale but gave it new people and characters as the backdrop of my next book set in 1870, Sweet Love at Honey Landing, and the story includes lots of history of Valley Station and West Point, as well as Portland and downtown. The book will eventually have a modern day sequel involving a descendent of my book’s hero who inherits the old house in a dilapidated condition. This is a link to a blog interview I did about the book—with a wonderful English woman named Susan Allen.

Most recently, I have been involved in a different sort of project. I was invited to take part in a multi-author western series, set between the years 1865-1875, centering on the concept of “Proxy Brides.” To date, I have written two of the eleven books in that series, which feature young single women who, for one reason or another, decide to become mail-order brides—only the situation on their side or on the prospective groom’s side necessitates a proxy marriage must take place before the couple meet. My stories for that series, A Bride for Finn and A Bride for Sam, begin in Louisville and then go to a small town in Nebraska called Brownville. That little town is a treasure and is packed with interesting history. There will be a third book in that series—A Bride for Tobias—and will be out summer of 2019.

People have asked me why I chose the 40’s time period for my early books, and I think it’s probably because of my mother and all of the other wonderful people I’ve known in my life who were part of the Greatest Generation—hearing their stories and dreaming about that era—and I love watching WWII movies on Turner Classics. I think it was a simpler time. People were more patriotic, loyal, and hard working, decent, and more stick-it-out-for-the-long-haul so to speak. Also, I adore the music back then—swing music. I think it was wonderful and I grew up listening to my mom’s old records (along with modern stuff like the Beatles and Donny Osmond, lol). The 1940s particularly seems romantic to me. I love the cars, the clothes (especially the shoes!), the hairstyles, the makeup, the radio programs, the movies on the “big screen” (i.e. Casablanca), and the lingo—some of it is hilarious—like if you really like something, it’s the “Killer-Diller.” As for my books being based in Kentucky, I decided that will be my forte, and every book I write will be centered around or at least start in Kentucky, if not Louisville, albeit in various decades.

All of my books are clean, meaning they don’t contain profanity or illicit sex. They are packed with historic details and exciting action and emotion, and endowed with simple truths and good morals, much the way TV shows like The Waltons and Little House on the Prairie were.

As a born-again Christian, I want my stories to impact my readers in a positive way and leave them feeling uplifted and encouraged. Although I don’t put my books in the Christian Fiction or even inspirational genres, I hope that good truths are gently planted in the reader. Truths that will bless them. For instance, God is always there and he loves us. He’s a forgiving God (you just need to ask) and lets a person come back to him even if they’ve walked away, made bad choices, or messed up somehow. I strive to ride that line between too much “God stuff” and not enough, lol. I don’t want to be preachy, but I want to impact people for good and leave them, hopefully, with nuggets, as well as characters and scenes, that they’ll never forget.

I’m self-published and intend to continue along this line unless I get an offer I can’t refuse or something changes drastically, lol. Currently, my books are only available on Amazon, as they are all enrolled in the KU (Kindle Unlimited) program as ebooks, but the paperback versions are for sale as well. I attend as many local book signing events as I can and sell paperbacks in person.

Plans are in the works for a series in Louisville that takes place at the turn of the century—Louisville has one of the largest sections of historic houses in the nation! Some of them built in the latter part of the 1800s—large, beautiful mansions. We have the river traffic and so many other things that can be worked into plots. Beyond that, I’d like to do a 1950s series, showcasing music and cars from that era. A flapper book or series is a possibility. Another 1800s book or series with people coming from the east before they venture out west is on the horizon. A Civil War series would be doable in that Kentucky was half Confederate, half Union. Think of the possibilities there, lol. If I run out of historical plots, I could always do a modern series.