Prairie Madness

Prairie MadnessPrairie Madness – Conspiracy at Fort Union
Author: Edwina Romero
Publisher: Random Horse Press
Cost: Paperback $18.81, Kindle e-book, $3.99
Available at: Amazon

Edwina Romero is the author of three books about Las Vegas, N.M. history. Prairie Madness – Conspiracy at Fort Union is her first novel. For more about the author go to www.edwinaromero.com.

If you like historical novels, you will thoroughly enjoy Prairie Madness – Conspiracy at Fort Union, by Edwina Romero. If you like a plain old good read, you are in for a treat.

Patti RomeroRomero has blended history and mystery to write an intriguing puzzle surrounding the death of personable Sean Flannery, a first sergeant at Fort Union in the late 1800s. The story involves the complex social structure of fort life with its military personnel, civilian workers, and privately-owned trader’s store. The ever-present winds sigh and bluster across the barren landscape, lending a haunting backdrop to this story of two women and the men in their lives.

Forget stereotypes, with washer women being the low rung on the social ladder, and think instead of the hardy women who ended up at the edges of the wild west. Their resilience is the true story behind this window on the past.

When army laundress Mary Margaret O’Keenan learns Sean is dead, she is convinced from the get-go that it was no accident. Who took the life of the man she had come to love? Mary Margaret intends to find out, ready to confront authority and bring to light clues she comes upon in her determined investigation.

Despite threats and pushback from military officials, she forges ahead with the unlikely but welcome help of Olivia Foote, wife of the post’s contract trader, a man whose motives appear to be less than honorable.

Mary Margaret and Olivia form a bond of trust and friendship that helps them in their pursuit of truth. The historical facts and setting take the reader back to an era when changes were underway for forts across the country. Howling winds batter at adobe walls and trickle through the mind, perhaps scouring away sober judgment and replacing it with the bare bones of greed and self-interest.

Place and character define a good story. In Prairie Madness, these elements are woven together beautifully. The tale moves apace revealing a conspiracy that reaches right into the office of the fort’s commanding officer and beyond.

Mary Margaret has good instincts, but deciding whom to trust isn’t easy. All she knows for sure is that the facts of Sean Flannery’s death must be revealed and the culprit brought to justice.

Paper Trail in Las Vegas, NM, will host a book signing on Saturday, March 16, at 1 p.m., featuring Romero and  Prairie Madness – Conspiracy at Fort Union. The book is also available online in paperback and Kindle format.

 

Review: Gate 76

Gate 76Gate 76, by Andrew Diamond, is about loss and redemption. The characters are stark, and for the most part – it seems – soulless. But are they? Gate 76 explores the dark side of life with a man who finds no good in the world. He’s seen it all. Lived it all, and he is not impressed. Well-meaning do-gooders who don’t have a clue, really push his hot button.

He most certainly doesn’t see his own goodness, the spark of caring that sets him apart from his brutal upbringing. Ex-boxer Freddy Ferguson has been betrayed too many times by people who should have been looking out for him.

And then he sees a woman in line at an airport, ready to board a plane. She appears to be under duress. He keeps watching. Something isn’t right. It’s her eyes, maybe, wide with fear, yet determined. She’s terrified, he can sense it.

That’s the beginning of a heart-pumping tale involving the bombing of an airplane, political corruption, prostitution, drugs and dirty lawmen.

In his role as a PI, Freddy is tasked with sorting through the passenger list of the downed plane, looking for clues, but he can’t get the woman out of his mind. She wasn’t on the plane that exploded, he knows that, but where did she go? Why was she afraid? Freddy doesn’t believe in much of anything not even justice. He does believe in following his instincts and doing the right thing, even when it may lead to his destruction.

Andrew Diamond’s novel Impala won the 24th Annual Writer’s Digest Award for genre fiction and the Readers’ Favorite Gold Medal for mystery. Amazon.com editors picked it as a best mystery/thriller of the month upon its release in September, 2016, and IndieReader chose it as one of the best indie novels of the year.

About the book
Title: Gate 76
Author: Andrew Diamond
Publisher: Stolen Time Press
Release Date: June 1, 2018
Language: English

My rating: Thumbs Up x 4


Please Follow, Like, Comment and Share this post. Your feedback is important to me. Thanks for reading One Roof Publishing Magazine. The publisher may be reached by e-mail at sharon@oneroofpublish.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

Review: Blood on the Tracks

Blood on the TracksStop. Think for just a minute – if you can – about the worst that can happen to you. Do you believe it is some dread disease, getting hit by a semi walking across the street or finding out you’ve been betrayed? Now project that horrific thought onto someone you trust, someone you would lay down your life for, someone who has laid down their life for you… someone whose body you’re going to have to pick up piece by tiny piece to the point the only way to identify that someone is through DNA, because there’s not enough left to ID any other way.

Those are the memories Railroad Police Special Agent Sidney Rose Parnell lives with day in and day out. As an Iraq war vet whose job was working in Mortuary Affairs, Parnell returns to civilian life seeing ghosts, suffering from somewhat controlled PTSD, and generally attempting normalcy in a chaotic world.

Her problems didn’t begin in Iraq, but Iraq didn’t make them any better. Now she is faced with a mystery associated with the Burned Man, a badly wounded and scarred vet whose fiancé has been brutally murdered. Parnell, and her war-zone trained K9 partner, Clyde, are brought into the investigation by the Denver Major Crimes unit because of her particular expertise with rail riders, hobos who crisscross the country stowing away on trains. The Burned Man, the prime suspect in the murder, is a known rider and Parnell has a sense of who he is as a damaged veteran, and what he will do next.

Her investigation, complicated by an icy Colorado winter, takes her into the dark world of a savage gang of rail riders, who she believes are responsible for the death of the Burned Man’s fiancé. But there is so much more at play: a secret from her time in the military, family loyalty, and her own tarnished childhood.

This is a complex story crafted with deliberation. Sydney Rose is a heroine who doesn’t want to be thought of as such. She is admirable, tough, and takes ownership of her flawed life. She lives by her own code and with as much integrity as she can muster against odds that sometimes seem stacked against her.

Hard to believe Blood on the Tracks is Barbara Nickless’ first novel. It is indeed a page-turner that keeps you reading. The characters are people you care about, or who you can’t wait to see dealt justice, even if it’s the vigilante kind.

And this is just the beginning…

From the Publisher
Barbara Nickless is an award-winning author whose short stories and essays have appeared in anthologies in the United States and the United Kingdom. An active member of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime, she has given workshops and speeches at numerous writing conferences and book events. She lives with her family in Colorado. Blood on the Tracks, which won the Daphne du Maurier Award and was a runner-up for the Claymore Award, is her first novel.

Available Editions

EDITION Paperback
ISBN 9781503936867
PRICE $14.95 (USD)

“Blood on the Tracks” on Amazon.com