They came for me, just like I knew they would. Luke had been dead for just three days.
Rose Wilks’ life is shattered when her newborn baby Joel is admitted to intensive care. Emma Hatcher has all that Rose lacks. Beauty. A loving husband. A healthy son. Until tragedy strikes and Rose is the only suspect.
Now, having spent nearly five years in prison in Ipswich, Rose is just weeks away from freedom. Her probation officer Cate must decide whether Rose is remorseful for her crime, or whether she remains a threat to society. As Cate is drawn in, she begins to doubt her own judgement.
Where is the line between love and obsession, can justice be served and, if so… by what means?
My thoughts: Rose has been imprisoned for the death of an infant, a death she continues to insist she isn’t responsible for. Her new probation officer, Cate, must decide whether or not to release Rose from prison on parole.
As she interviews Rose, her partner, the parents of the child, she tries to see whether or not Rose would be a risk to anyone else if released. But since Rose still won’t admit any guilt, and no one else wants her free, it’s hard to decide what to do.
A fascinating and thought provoking read, Rose’s story is very sad, but it’s hard to work out whether she truly is guilty or just a convenient patsy, as no one is truly being honest it feels, when they talk to Cate about the case, keeping their true feelings locked away. I was left with questions, but as Cate is reminded, her job is not to decide whether Rose did it, but whether she should be released. Intriguing.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
Beyond the village of Raven’s Edge stands the Gateway to the Dead – a crumbling stone arch marking the site where a long-ago battle raged and the dead were buried where they fell. But it’s the forgotten mansion hidden in the trees behind it that holds the real mystery…
Lady Peony has lived at Blackheath Hall for decades, invisible to the world – until a ghostly soldier begins knocking at her door. But Lady Peony is no fool. In her experience, where there are spirits, there are schemers. And someone wants her out of that house.
As DI Ben Taylor and DS Harriet March begin their investigation, bitter winds howl through Raven’s Edge and strange mists curl around the battle site. Harriet must untangle what’s real from what’s imagined. Is there truly a ghost haunting the old house, or is someone very much alive using supernatural tales as cover for their own deadly agenda?
Atmospheric, chilling and deliciously gothic, this cosy mystery wraps ancient legends and murder into one unputdownable story. Perfect for fans of Fiona Leitch, Agatha Christie and readers who like their crime with a shiver down the spine!
Most of my stories are set in small villages filled with quirky characters. These are partly inspired by the places I’ve lived in over the years, although the characters are straight out of my imagination! I currently live in Wales, close to a famous library and two ruined castles. My husband thinks we moved here by accident.
My first published novel was Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, which was a finalist in Poolbeg’s Write a Bestseller competition. As well as ten novels, I’ve written short stories for women’s magazines. Before becoming a full-time writer, I worked as an administrative officer for the police. When I’m not writing, I enjoy visiting big old houses, which I use as inspiration for the houses in my novels, and reading other people’s books when I ought to be writing my own…
My thoughts: This series gets better with every book, and this is a cracker. A body is found in the grave of an English Civil War soldier, only it’s brand new, at least compared to the 17th Century one underneath.
And then there’s the ghostly visitor over at the almost forgotten Blackheath Hall, touting a very real musket, at least the bullet in the local PI’s leg is!
Are the two incidents connected and if so, how can the police arrest a ghost?
As Ben and Harriet investigate, they turn up some secrets others would prefer kept quiet.
Another excellent case in the village of Raven’s Edge, a place I’m not sure I’d want to visit, although all the baked goods sound delicious!
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own
The brand-new thriller featuring DCS Kat Frank and AIDE Lock, from the award-winning Sunday Times bestselling author of In the Blink of an Eye.
Human suspicion. AI manipulation. When truth can be rewritten, who can you trust?
DCS Kat Frank is back at the Future Policing Unit after a devastating loss – and straight into her most disturbing case yet.
On Halloween night, a local MP is found murdered. Beside the body is a taunting message in binary code, aimed directly at Kat:
Catch me if you can.
The victim was a vocal opponent of AI. The motive looks political. But as Kat investigates with her partner, AIDE Lock – the world’s first AI detective – the case spirals into something far more dangerous.
Then a cyberattack takes down the National Grid.
With the country in chaos and lives on the line, Kat and Lock must track a killer who is always one step ahead. But in a world of deepfakes, deception and digital ghosts, instinct is no longer enough.
Kat must decide whether to trust the one thing she still fears most: her AI partner.
Because this time, Lock may not just be solving the case.
He may be changing what it means to be human.
Can Kat stop a killer before the lights go out for good?
My thoughts: This series is so good, and so prescient as the debate about AI gathers steam.
Lock and Kat are investigating the murder of a local MP, her body found with a message that seems to be just for them.
As they investigate it seems their case has far reaching dimensions, as an unknown threat emerges and attacks the national grid, demanding the government should hand over millions in return for getting to keep the lights on.
At the same time, a member of Kat’s team has a critically ill child, if they don’t get the power back on, it could have serious consequences for them.
Seconded onto the government’s emergency response team, Kat and Lock must find this hidden threat and stop them before the generators run down.
I was absolutely gripped, such a good case, Kat is a great protagonist and even though Lock is an AI construct, he’s surprisingly human at times. I really enjoyed every page, Jo Callaghan is a fantastic writer.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
In the dead of night, lying in her father’s jungle lodge, Laelia watches her partner Aid sleeping – her mind racing with everything that’s brought her to this moment.
The heady Caribbean holiday when they first met.
The rum-fueled passion that, day by day, creeps into something darker.
The secrets she discovered in a hidden nook of the lodge, revealing a devastating past.
Above all, she thinks about the impossible decision she must make before dawn.
Does she stay silent and protect their newfound paradise? Or does she confront the lies which run as deep and dark as the lagoon – surfacing a dangerous truth from which there’s no return…
JO MOREY is a graduate of the Faber Academy and the Curtis Brown Breakthrough Mentoring Scheme. The Night Lagoon is her first novel, a literary suspense, for fans of The White Lotus and Where the Crawdads Sing. It was selected as The Sunday Times ‘Book of the Month’, is one of Good Housekeeping’s ’20 Hottest Books of the Summer’ and has been described by US Publishers Weekly as ‘Lush and immersive with a chillingly effective payoff.’
Like her protagonist, Jo wears hearing aids and suffers constant tinnitus. She lives in West Sussex at the foot of the South Downs with her husband, two boys and two Portuguese Water Dogs. Jo is currently working on her next novel, set on the North Island of New Zealand where she used to live.
My thoughts: Belize isn’t somewhere I know anything about, beyond the fact that it was once occupied by the British.
Laelia’s father is an academic specialising in orchids, of which Belize has many species. She and her sister Chloe are visiting him for his birthday, with their partners and children.
When he has a terrible accident and ends up in hospital, she decides to stay and look after his home, prepare it for his return. But as she and her partner Aid settle in with her children, Ella and Dylan and become part of the community, things start to go awry.
Aid has secrets, secrets Laelia needs to learn in order to stay safe. Her father knew some of them and if he ever wakes up, he’ll be able to tell her. But Aid isn’t behaving like his usual self and his past is beginning to intrude into their present.
Gripping and fascinating, with a great protagonist whose disability makes it harder for her to be sure what is true and what she’s heard.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
Welcome to England’s New Forest, where clinging mists hide many a secret. Step beneath the towering pines — on any twisty heathland path — and you’ll soon realise there’s more to this place than meets the eye . . .
Detective Elinor Saxby leaves the city for a crooked little cottage near sleepy Lyndhurst village. It’s not exactly her dream home, cut off from everything and everyone she’s ever known. But Elinor will do anything to leave her troubled past behind. She can run from her demons. But she can’t hide.
The very next morning, Elinor gets a call from her new sergeant. A woman’s been found dead. Drowned in the pool of her luxury woodland spa. Her silk gown is ruined. Her perfect skin marred by livid red hand prints.
But it’s not these details that send Elinor spiralling in panic. It’s the victim’s name. Because the dead woman is no stranger to Elinor. She texted just last night to ask Elinor one last favour. Now the only favour Elinor can do her is to find her killer.
Linda Mather is the author of the Jo and Macy Mystery series. The 6th book in this series is THE PERFECT HOUSE FOR MURDER, published in August 2023. Her Jo and Macy Mystery books are Forecast Murder, A Sign for Murder, Murder as Predicted, The Hanged Man and A Future Murder, all published by Joffe Books and available on Amazon. They feature Jo Hughes and her private investigator boss David Macy. Jo is an astrologer, who also works as a PI and whose tenacious inquiries lead her to twisty resolutions.
The Jo and Macy Mysteries series is set in the West Midlands and Cotswolds. A sense of place is really important to Linda. She likes to research the places she writes about by visiting when she can to absorb the atmosphere, weaving the details into the stories.
The idea for her latest book came to her during lockdown during many canal walks. The cottages with their flower-filled window boxes and the idyllic pubs along the canal path are so pretty and perfect that it looks as if nothing bad could ever happen there. Linda saw this as a challenge.
Linda has recently landed a contract for 3 books in a police thriller series and is currently writing the first of these, which is set in the New Forest.
She also has plans for the next Jo & Macy Mystery.
My thoughts: Elinor has moved from the busy buzz of Birmingham Police to the sleepy New Forest, where she doesn’t think they have much crime. But her first case is murder, and the victim is someone she knows.
While the team get to work, Elinor has to deal with office politics, a new boss, and members of her team who would rather be anywhere else than here.
Luckily newly qualified Detective Constable Nancy is keen as mustard and determined to get to the bottom of the case, how did a trauma counsellor end up face down in the pool at a luxury hotel and spa with her lungs full of chlorine gas? And does an accident involving the same hotel’s handyman and his moped have anything to do with it?
As the case unfolds and the team starts to get used to their new DCI, can they get to the bottom of things and work together, and can Elinor whip them into shape subtly, avoiding comparisons with her predecessor, whose exit seems to be have been swifter than she originally believed. What is going on in the New Forest?
An enjoyable and engaging start to a new series, from which Nancy emerges as the most interesting character apart from Elinor, who has plenty of secrets of her own. I look forward to more in the next book.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
Leo and Viv’s Friday night starts out like any other. A bottle of wine, a takeaway from their favourite Chinese restaurant, a movie, then an early night.
But when Leo wakes up, he finds he’s not in London anymore; he’s naked and alone in an unfamiliar bed, in an anonymous hotel, on the other side of the world. Viv wakes up to a ringing phone. It’s Leo – he claims that he’s in Australia, despite the impossibility of it. An emergency passport is arranged.
A return flight to London is booked, but before Leo can make it onto the plane, there’s a flicker in the corner of his vision, and he wakes up in another bed, in another hotel room, in another country.
Disoriented, Leo soon discovers he’s not alone. Someone with access to a groundbreaking technology and an axe to grind is beaming a group of individuals around the globe – and hunting them down, one by one, committing perfect, untraceable murders.
As Leo fights for his life, back in London, Viv is struggling to understand what’s happening. But as her investigation deepens she starts to unearth secrets from Leo’s past. Dark secrets. Secrets that might be enough to make someone want to kill him. And the more she learns about Leo, the less she seems to know and the less certain she is that her husband is a man worth saving.
Robin Brookes grew up in Sydney, Australia and now lives in Brighton, England. She has worked as a playwright, copywriter and bookseler. The idea for The Arrival came about after Robin heard, and misunderstood, the science behind the 2022 Nobel Prize for Physics. It is currently in development as a feature film.
My thoughts: This is a very clever story, you’re as at sea as Leo and Viv to begin with, as they try to make sense of how Leo has woken up on the other side of the world, 24 hours away by plane, just seconds it seems to them.
As the story unfolds, and Viv investigates how someone could be controlling where Leo finds himself, from Australia, to North Korea and beyond, you learn they face a dangerous and angry foe, intent on revenge for the sort of incidents that fester and become larger the longer you dwell on them. They’ve had access to an incredible new technology, and they’re using it to carry out their outsized revenge plan, despite it not officially being able to transmit people, just objects.
Viv is determined to get her husband back before she gives birth, and Leo must stay alive long enough to make it home, unsure who his enemy is, or what they’re capable of.
Tense, gripping and really enjoyable, this is a brilliant thriller with an ingenious plot.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own
Discover Italy’s bewitching region of Puglia with the seventh Daniel Leicester mystery, the most propulsive yet . . .
English detective and Bologna resident Daniel Leicester has been summoned by a dying relative to the wildest corner of Puglia, home to revered saints, fearsome mafia clans, hidden catacombs and sinister ceremonies.
As Daniel discovers that his Italian family’s history runs deep in the veins of the region, old grudges resurface, superstitions awaken and he is drawn into a case of stolen antiquities. But when a contact is murdered by mobsters, it’s clear that mafia rule is more powerful than local mysticism.
Lured by magic but trapped by the mob, Daniel is unable to return to his beloved Bologna. His family is bound to Puglia more tightly than he ever imagined, and powerful people want answers he can’t give. And when Daniel’s daughter is snatched during a Holy Week procession, he sees first-hand just how far they’re prepared to go . . .
Tom Benjamin grew up in the suburbs of north London and worked as a journalist before becoming a Scotland Yard spokesperson.
He later moved into public health, where he developed Britain’s first national campaign against alcohol abuse, and led FRANK, a drugs awareness programme.
He now lives in Bologna. Old Bones in Puglia is the seventh book in his Daniel Leicester series of mysteries.
My thoughts: Daniel is accompanying the Commandante to Puglia, where the older man once served and met his wife, who comes from the region.
They’ve been asked to come to the aid of archaeologists, who think their most recent finds are actually forgeries and the real ancient relics have been stolen to sell to the highest bidder.
But it’s all a lot more complicated than it first seems, there are secrets galore in a region where no one wants to talk to the police, or to a PI.
Then Daniel’s beloved daughter Rose is kidnapped in broad daylight. Is it connected to the case or something older, more confusing?
As Daniel attempts to understand the layered, complex tangle of superstitions, secrets and history in the place, he finds himself entangled with witchcraft, revenge and murder.
A clever, well written story that draws you in and keeps you hooked until the very last page. This series just gets better with every book.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
On the brink of war, one secret will tear a powerful family apart.
The Hartford sisters gather for one final night at Bonsall Hall, their once-grand family estate, on the eve of it being lost forever. The dinner is meant to mark an ending — a farewell to the house, the past, and the life they once knew. But before morning comes, everything changes.
Audrey, the youngest, is reckless and curious, always pushing against the rules that bind her. Katherine, the eldest, is controlled and calculating, fiercely protective of thefamily’s reputation at any cost. Beatrice clings to elegance and influence through her dangerous political connections, while Sophia’s radical beliefs place her on the opposite side of everything the family stands for.
When a guest disappears under suspicious circumstances, the fragile balance between the sisters begins to fracture. As Europe edges closer to war, their personal loyalties collide with their political convictions, and Audrey is drawn into a shadowy world of secrets, surveillance and power struggles that reach from country houses to intelligence offices.
With Britain racing to prepare for a conflict, the sisters must decide where they stand — with each other, with their country, or with their own beliefs. Because some truths could change the course of history… and some are deadly enough to destroy a family.
Of Sisters and Spitfires is a gripping historical thriller about family and the moral compromises made in the shadow of war, perfect for fans of Kate Atkinson and Robert Harris.
Frank Francis is a pseudonym for the combined work of George F. Brown and Guillaume Jest, known for their contributions to the historical thriller genre.
My thoughts: The Hartford sisters made me think of the Mitford sisters (probably intentionally), where they were on opposite sides of the political spectrum. Although they still had their parents and brother, and I think at least one of them was properly nuts.
The Hartfords struggle with their relationships, politics causing division, but they pull together when they have to. When a guest to the family home is killed mysteriously in the middle of the night, after visiting to bring them their brother’s journal, it seems there’s more to his visit than it first appears.
Youngest sister, Audrey, investigates with the help of a journalist friend, and is soon caught up in the huge changes sweeping Europe, especially in Germany, where she finds a cell of resistance fighters against the Nazi threat.
But what she soon learns is that things are much more complicated than it first appears, and her family secrets go deeper than she could imagine.
It’s a clever concept, a complex plot and reflects the real situation of the 1930s and 40s, as Europe headed to war.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
Welcome to Honeybee’s diner, where the scent of butter and garlic wraps itself around you, thick and comforting. Jessie Haynes’ homestyle cooking feeds the hearts and souls of the good people of Willow Bluff. Until someone puts murder on the menu!
Y’all are invited to dig into a steamin’ plate of meatloaf. The diner’s well-worn red chairs have cradled folks from every corner of Willow Bluff—Jessie’s podcasting bestie, Tee, Old Mr Higgins, two mighty mischievous kittens, Biscuits and Gravy, and every tattling townsperson in between—so when the mayor turns blue after a bite of Jessie’s famous shrimp and grits, she finds herself in seriously hot water…
Suddenly, all eyes are swivelled toward Jessie. For fifty years her family has fed Willow Bluff, and Jessie won’t let one mouthful shatter the legacy of her grandmother’s secret recipes. The mayor’s peanut allergy was talk of the town, so when traces are found in his food, Jessie must fight to clear her name.
An empty peanut packet in the diner’s pantry has Jessie and Tee hot on the heels of the murderer when another case of food tampering occurs at a nearby bakery. Someone is dishing out delicious death sentences. How many locals will get served before Jessie can crack the case? Her investigation must be a recipe for success or Honeybee’s will be toast…
This unputdownable and addictive cozy mystery is full of Southern charm, a gripping whodunnit and a feisty amateur sleuth. It’s perfect for fans of Agatha Christie, Ellery Adams and Joanne Fluke.
Skylar Warren is a Chicago native and a graduate of Chicago State University, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Communications, Media Arts and Theatre. She now lives in New York City and works as a claims adjuster. In her spare time, she enjoys watching mysteries and solving puzzles.
My thoughts: This was a fun and enjoyable crime caper centering on a diner in a small town called Willow Bluff. Jessie has taken over the diner her grandmother founded, cooking her recipes for the town.
Until disaster strikes and the mayor drops dead of anaphylaxis on the diner’s anniversary. He’s well known to be allergic to peanuts and Jessie is insistent that her kitchen is peanut free, so how did the nuts get into his food?
Did someone murder the mayor and frame Jessie? Luckily she has a crack team of investigators – also known as her friends – to solve the case. And it helps that the sheriff is on her side too, the evidence has been collected and is being analysed.
Unfortunately the town is a gossip’s paradise and the local estate agent, a rather nasty woman, cannot stop spreading rumours and undermining Jessie’s attempts to assert her innocence.
I hope this becomes a series, with Jessie and her friends solving crimes in their small town, the characters are fun and there are cats called Biscuits and Gravy.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
A man returning from war often expects to find something left behind, some piece of life waiting to be reclaimed. In The Devil’s Shadow series by Burt Tyson, Captain Robert Hester instead faces a reality where everything he once relied on has vanished, leaving him to confront what comes after loss.
For Captain Robert Hester, the end of the war does not bring closure. It leaves him wounded, hunted, and without direction in a world that has moved on without him. The structures that once defined his life have fallen away, replaced by a path shaped entirely by consequence and personal choice.
His story begins in The Shadow Appears, where he emerges from the war with his name placed on a Union kill list as the Confederacy collapses around him. Returning home offers no refuge. Instead, he is met with a devastating loss that erases everything he expected to find. What follows is no longer about causes or commands, but a deeply personal pursuit. Riding with his loyal sergeant through a fractured landscape, he confronts a world where survival often outweighs honor and former soldiers have become something harder and less certain.
Without that driving force, The Shadow Grows places Hester in unfamiliar land, moving forward without purpose and carrying the weight of what remains. A chance encounter with a wounded Apache elder draws him into a different way of living, one grounded in patience and discipline. When violence threatens those around him, he must decide whether to remain apart or step forward, knowing the choice will define his future.
Burt Tyson writes historical Western fiction rooted in the aftermath of the Civil War, where questions of honor, loss, and survival take center stage. Influenced by classic storytellers like Louis L’Amour, Larry McMurtry, and the Western television heroes he grew up watching, his work explores what happens when the fight is over and a man is left to decide who he is without it.
His Devil’s Shadow series follows Captain Robert Hester through a fractured post-war America and into the unforgiving frontier beyond.
Tyson lives in a small town in South Carolina, where the landscape is quiet—but the stories he tells are anything but. Visit Burt at his website.
The Shadow Appears
Chapter 1
The buzzing woke me. I opened my eyes. It was morning. I saw the blowfly on the sheet that covered my chest, staring at me through his two large eyes, his wings vibrating in the still air.
I didn’t even bother to shoo him away. It was a waste of time. There were too many of them. There shouldn’t have been. It was the last week of March in Richmond in 1865, and there should have been a few in sun-warmed windows and no more.
But this was the Chimborazo Hospital and blowflies were everywhere, along with the groans and cries of wounded men— many dying—and the ever-present stench of disease, gangrene, human waste, and blood.
We were a sad lot. Too little medicine. Too little food. Too little hope. Too much pain. Too much fear. And for many, too few limbs.
But it was far better than the field hospital where I had lain for a day after being shot. Or the jolting, painful wagon ride to Richmond.
I had been here since the middle of December. First, it was the wound and the blood loss. Then, the fever had come. And, now, it was just the weakness. I didn’t have the strength to get out of bed—a pretty pitiful sight for a cavalry officer.
I heard the click of cavalry boots on the wooden floor before I saw the figure. Captain Jonathan Washburn stood at the end of my bed. His left sleeve was folded up and pinned at the shoulder. I could never get used to seeing him without his arm.
“Well, Captain, I suppose you’ve malingered long enough. You have new orders. Get yourself dressed. We’re taking you out of all this.”
“I’m being released from this hell-hole? You mean that?”
“I do, indeed. Turley, front and center, man. Get yourself out here and help the captain.”
Sergeant Josiah Turley materialized as if out of thin air. A lean, wiry mountain boy, Turley was raw-boned, with a shock of red hair and a disposition to match.
It was Turley, more than anyone else, who had saved me.
The Shadow Grows
Chapter 1
I rode out of Parral with no sense of purpose, no mission. I was lost. I still had the dreams. Every night.
They began as they always did, with the bloody tears streaming from my mama’s portrait, the wraithlike figures of Aunt Callie, my daddy, my sister, and my fiancée swirling about me, asking why I hadn’t saved them. And then, after the fire and the blood of my home place, the faces of Ruth and Laurie and the bodies of Abby and Jacob. And then all of the loved ones in the dream swirled around me like tormented spirits. Their voices joined together in a single chorus. Though their mouths never moved, I heard their words.
You’ve failed us. Where is our vengeance? Where is our peace? What are we to do?
Their haunting bodies pressed around me, choking me with their presence.
And each night I would come awake, unable to breathe, my heart racing. It always felt like I would never regain my breath or still my heart. The oppression of sadness and pain and guilt never seemed to go away.
As I rode westward, riding the big gray stallion, Quicksilver Ghost, and leading three other horses, Lady Red, the bay I had given my sister, and two black geldings, I still carried the hope of revenge on George Stoneman for what his bummers had done to the ones I loved back in Virginia and North Carolina. But with the failure of Jo Shelby’s plans to regroup and reenter Texas to continue the fight against the Yankees, I had little left but despair. I rode the lonely wastes of Chihuahua State in Mexico, heading for the Copper Canyon. I had nothing else to do that mattered.
I decided I would enter the Barrancas del Cobre, the Copper Canyon, from the west and ride back toward Texas. I rode through the towns of La Noria, El Tule, San Pablo Balleza, La Loma, Yoquivo, Batopilas, La Bufa, and Cusarare. At each of the towns, I found a place for my horses and cared for them. I ate in whatever cantina the town had to offer and drank mescal.
At Cusarare, I rode east toward the canyon, descending into the most desolate country I had ever seen. And the most beautiful. From the high mountain ridges to the bottom of the canyon, I went from alpine peaks of pines and Douglas fir at almost eight thousand feet to huge figs and palm trees at the bottom of the canyon at just eighteen hundred feet above sea level.
For the next two weeks, I rode through the Copper Canyon. I marveled at the copper and green color of the canyon walls and the beauty and stillness of it. There was plentiful game, and I ate well while riding through this marvel of nature. I saw no one and no sign of anyone.
The peace and solitude felt good. I thought a lot. About my life for the past few years. And about what the Padre had said to me. But I still had the dreams.
Q & A
What’s a detail, theme, or clue in your book that most readers might miss on the first read but you secretly hope someone notices? That men, at least prior to current times, were never taught to deal with failure. And, yet, the loss of the War and the “Cause” carried with it, often, the loss of home, family, future and purpose. What better metaphor for failure than the Confederate soldier after the Civil War?
When did this story or idea “click” into place for you—was there a single moment you knew you had to write it? The issue of men and loss had been around since the mid-1980s when I was forced to close a business and my wife divorced me. Around 1990, I wrote a novel which would become the 5th novel in this series. After my 2nd wife died in 2016, I started writing again and wrote the 1st novel in the series which sets the tone and the themes for the rest of the series: loss, failure, guilt, despair…and, perhaps, redemption.
Which character or real-life person surprised you the most while writing this book, and why? The Mexican Padre (not a real-life person). His thoughts and questions surprised me as they were not ones I had had.
If your book had a soundtrack, which songs would be on it and what scenes or moments would they pair with? The Theme Song of the Gray Ghost TV series about John Singleton Mosby for the opening of the novel. “Lorena,” during and after the destruction of his home and the killing of his family and his fiance. “The Bonnie Blue Flag,” during the journey through the devastated South to rejoin Jeff Davis and then to reach Texas. “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” as Captain Hester, Sergeant Turly and Corporal Travis enter and ride through Texas. A Mexican song celebrating the Battle of Puebla (e.g., La Paloma Juarista), as a foretelling of the outcome of Shelby’s attempt to negotiate with Maximillian, to be played during the scene when Hester explains his break with Shelby. Mariachi music in the scene in the cantina with confrontation with Mexican vaquero. “Ave Maria instrumental” for the scenes with Padre Jose as Hester is recovering from wounds. The theme song for the movie The Outlaw Josie Wales for the final scene of the novel.
What’s one belief, question, or emotional truth you hope readers carry with them long after they finish your book? That the Cowboy Code endures…honor.,honesty, courage, knowing right from wrong.
Tell us about a moment during the writing process when the story (or message) took an unexpected turn. The introduction of Jim Dandy Travis and the events in Dogtown and on the Travis ranch.
If your protagonist (or central figure) could give the reader one piece of advice, what would it be? Fight for right and saddle up no matter how high the risk.
What real-world place, object, or memory helped shape a key element in your book? Jo Shelby’s retreat into Mexico.
What’s something you had to research, learn, or experience to write this book that genuinely surprised you? Almost everything. Civil war guns, post-war Natchez, Shelby’s march into Mexico, horses, etc.
If your book were invited to join a shelf with three other titles, which ones would make you happiest—and what would that shelf say about your story? Lonesome Dove, The Daybreakers, Kilkenny, Appaloosa That this is a Western about strong men with honor, fighting for a place to live and overcoming life’s circumstances.
ramblingmads 