That was some blog tour. Thanks! A writer I know joked that it sounded like an actual tour with “bloggy food.” That seems like the kind of repast which is bound to give you indigestion. In 1912 Miriam’s mother might have taken a spoonful of patent medicine (a substance that is covered by a trademark and sold without a prescription) for an upset stomach. Good for what ails you, or at least it couldn’t hurt, except when it did! As she tells Miriam in Blue Thread:
This is as harmless as Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound.
Yes, there really was a Lydia Pinkham, and she
brewed home remedies in Massachusetts in the late 1800s. Her “Vegetable Compound” for “female complaints” became a very popular patent medicine. The alcohol-based compound contained pleurisy root, unicorn root, life root, black cohosh, and fenugeek seed. Compounds similar to Lydia’s original version are still sold today.
My name is Ruth. I write books and articles for children and young adults. Blue Thread is my eleventh book, and the first one in which I have knowingly stretched the truth.