Western Historicals: March 2015

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Joy That Long Endures

Joy that Long Endures is the second of the Irish Blessings series of historical novels that began in Cheyenne with Walls for the Wind. The series tells the stories of Irish immigrants set along the tracks of the new transcontinental railroad in Wyoming Territory. A former iron man for the Union Pacific, Devin Cavanaugh labors day after day to transport loads from the little railroad town of Bryan 100 miles over dirt trails to South Pass City. He wants only one seemingly unattainable thing: to be his own man. Dulcinetta Jackson, taught from childhood how to profit from the dreams of desperate men, wants the one thing denied her by her life of fabulous wealth: the place bestowed on those accepted in respectable society. What happens when very different people with different ambitions team up to gamble on achieving their dreams?

WILLOW VALE

WESTERN HORIZON AWARD winner; WYOMING STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY PUBLICATIONS AWARD winner; KIRKUS INDIE NEW AND NOTABLE. If Francesca Sittoni dreamed of an America with streets of gold, she is in for utter shock when she steps off the train in Hawk Point, Wyoming. Her first husband killed in the Great War, forced into a second marriage, Francesca finds no glitter in the West, only toil in the coal dust from the railroad mine. When her new husband is killed and she is left pregnant and alone to raise a four-year-old, Francesca fears all her hopes for a good life in America have been crushed. Willow Valley rancher and veteran Kent Reed has nothing more on his mind than some good cooking when he advertises for a housekeeper. Expecting a middle-aged matron, Kent finds he can t abandon Francesca in the middle of a dusty Western street with her little daughter and all her worldly possessions. Kent hires Francesca for one year. Kent is also a victim of the war, but his physical problems don t compare to the emotional bomb crater left in his heart when his beautiful wife Jessie deserted him.Too wounded by past hurts to begin to trust again, their faith having been tested severely, Francesca and Kent each vow to remain merely employer and employee. But the valley and its residents, plus a lot of hard ranch work, begin to work their magic at healing old wounds and shoring up their faith in destiny. Francesca and Kent's attraction and similar history is fated to build into enduring love.

NÁÁPIIKOAN WINTER

At the turn of a new century, changes unimagined are about to unfold. THE WOMAN: Kidnapped by the Apaches, a Mexican woman learns the healing arts. Stolen by the Utes, she is sold and traded until she ends up with the Piikáni. All she has left are her skills—and her honor. What price will she pay to ensure a lasting place among the People? THE MAN: Raised in a London charitable school, a young man at the end of the third of a seven year term of indenture to the Hudson’s Bay Company is sent to the Rocky Mountains to live among the Piikáni for the winter to learn their language and to foster trade. He dreams of his advancement in the company, but he doesn’t reckon the price for becoming entangled in the passions of the Piikáni. THE LAND: After centuries of conflict, Náápiikoan traders approach the Piikáni, powerful members of the Blackfoot Confederation. The Piikáni already have horses and weapons, but they are promised they will become rich if they agree to trap beaver for Náápiikoan. Will the People trade their beliefs for the White Man’s bargains? Alethea Williams is the author of Willow Vale, the story of a Tyrolean immigrant’s journey to America after WWI. Willow Vale won a 2012 Wyoming State Historical Society Publications Award. In her second novel, Walls for the Wind, a group of New York City immigrant orphans arrive in Hell on Wheels, Cheyenne, Wyoming. Walls for the Wind is a WILLA Literary Award finalist, a gold Will Rogers Medallion winner, and placed first at the Laramie Awards in the Prairie Fiction category. Partially based on the works of Canadian trader, explorer, and mapmaker David Thompson, Náápiikoan Winter spans a continent, examining the cultures in flux at the passing of an era and the painful birth of another.

WALLS FOR THE WIND

LARAMIE AWARDS 1st Place Prairie Fiction winner; WILL ROGERS MEDALLION gold level winner; WILLA LITERARY AWARD finalist; MPIBA READING THE WEST AWARD nominee. Can an angel survive Hell on Wheels? Raised according to strict moral tenets, 22-year-old Kit Calhoun’s rigid ideas of decency are stretched to the limit when she finds herself in charge of four New York City orphans in the very heart of rip-roaring Hell on Wheels. Irish immigrant Patrick Kelley first spies Kit in Julesburg, pursues her to Cheyenne, but must still convince her that the best thing to do is to leave behind everything they thought they knew before and learn to forge new lives in the raw American West.

Western Historicals

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Friday, March 13, 2015

WALLS FOR THE WIND

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Meet the Authors of MFRW