In a year when so many writers conferences had to be cancelled, Pikes Peak Writers joined forces with Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers and Northern Colorado Writers to present the Colorado Writers Collaborative. This is a free YouTube channel going live September 1st and offering over thirty videos for writers covering topics ranging from writing vivid settings to negotiating media deals. Learn from NYT bestselling authors like Rachel Howzell Hall, John Gilstrap, and Bob Mayer; local favorites like Carol Berg, Stant Latore, and Johnny Worthen; editors Tiffany Yates Martin and Anita Mumm, and many, many others. Now, you can have a conference-esque experience for free without leaving the comfort of your favorite chair. Enjoy!
Congratulations to Jennie MacDonald on her recent release. Her edited collection, Schabraco and other Gothic tales from The Lady’s Monthly Museum, 1798-1828, is now available from Valancourt Books.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
Originally published for girls attending English boarding schools, The Lady’s Monthly Museum offers a fascinating look at popular culture for young people during Jane Austen’s era. The book is available from Valancourt Books, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository, and other booksellers worldwide.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Jennie MacDonald, PhD, is an award-winning author and playwright. Her edited collection, Schabraco and other Gothic tales from The Lady’s Monthly Museum, 1798-1828, debuted in February 2020 from Valancourt Books. Her picture book play, “Where There’s Smoke,” debuted in PHAMALY Theatre Company’s 2020 production, Come to Your Senses. Her dark comedy, “A Merry Widow or Two,” received the 2019 Colorado Authors League Award of Excellence for Playwriting. Other publications include short stories, fine art photos, and articles concerning 18th and 19th century Gothic literature, theatre, and visual and material culture. The latest, “’The Comical Hotch Potch, or the Alphabet turn’d Posture Master’: A Fluid Text Reading of Carington Bowles’ 1782 Satirical Print,” appears in the Spring 2020 issue of Palaver. Visit the author at www.jenniemacdonald.com
Sweet Success is coordinated by Darby Karchut who is an award-winning author, dreamer, and compulsive dawn greeter. A proud native of New Mexico, she now lives in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, where she runs in blizzards and bikes in lightning storms. If you have a Sweet Success to share please contact her via email.
Having your work published in an anthology is a great way to expand your writing horizons and add another notch on your writing resume. Most anthologies are open to everyone, no matter if they are a seasoned professional or just getting started.
Submitting to an anthology is, in general, simple.
Write a story – be sure it is well written, grammatically correct, and it fits the theme.
Find an anthology open for submissions
Have a cover letter or query just in case
Read and follow every step of the guidelines
Hit that submit button
Simple, right? Now, let’s look at each step in more detail.
WRITE A STORY
There are two basic ways to write your story. You can either write the story you love, then find an anthology that fits it, or write a story specifically for a themed anthology. I have found the latter is somewhat easier to write for. If you have a story already written, the hunt for a matching theme is tedious.
FIND AN ANTHOLOGY
Finding the perfect anthology for an already written story can be, as I said, painstaking unless you use a couple of tools to help with your search. Like anything in this digital world, searching on the internet is a good first step. A few other resources that you can use are online data bases like Duotrope, Submittable, or New Pages. Be aware that some of these require a monthly fee.
Easier yet, is to do the same search but read what they are looking for and write to the theme. This can be a great exercise to expand your skills as a writer and increase your diversity.
COVER LETTER OR QUERY
Not all anthologies require a cover letter or a query, but if they do, I suggest you have this ready to go. You may find that perfect publication only to learn their deadline is in an hour. If you already have a cover letter written you won’t have to put yourself through any unnecessary stress.
READ THE GUIDELINES
I’d like to put this in huge letters, all caps, highlighted, and in red ink. READ THE GUIDELINES!!No matter how many times you read the guidelines, read them again until you have precisely what they editors want. If your story only “kind of” fits the theme, don’t send it until you have made the necessary rewrites, so it fits perfectly. If they say, “no gratuitous gore”, take the time to do a simple rewrite to remove any unwanted portions. If the guidelines specifically want the metadata removed, get it out of there. Check and double check your submission to be sure it meets every point the guidelines make. These steps are a sure way to avoid the reject pile on the first pass.
HIT THE SUBMIT BUTTON
STOP! Don’t hit submit quite yet. No matter how sure you are of a submission this is the stage of no return. Once you hit that submit button, it is gone. There is no turning back. Take a deep breath and review the submission guidelines one more time. Open your story and re-check it for typos and grammar one more time. Check the formatting one more time. Review your query one more time. You will be surprised at what you might find that you missed the first 50 times you went over everything.
BE PATIENT
Once your story is in the hands of the editors. BE PATIENT. Most publications will send an auto response saying they received your submission so trust that they did get it. If you haven’t heard back from them by the deadline set, then it is ok to inquire what the status is. Until then, maintain a level of professionalism by sitting on your hands and waiting. Some publications can take up to six months to let you know if you have been accepted, others just a few months. The best way to pass the time while you wait? Write more stories and submit them on a regular basis then repeat. Time will fly.
Having your work included in an anthology is rewarding to say the least. Following these easy steps will help you stay out of the reject pile and get your work read. You never know, you might find yourself published alongside someone you admire.
Kathie “KJ” Scrim, Managing Editor of PPW’s blog and Co-Editor of Fresh Starts (PPW’s first anthology), is a graduate of the University of Colorado at Boulder. Her inspiration for blogging, flash fiction, short stories, and the long haul of novel writing comes from her many life experiences. When she’s not writing you can find her somewhere in Colorado walking, hiking, or rock climbing at the local gym.
Congratulations to Jean Alfieri on the April 12th release of her self-guided journal, BLESSED TO BE ME.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
BLESSED TO BE ME is a guided journal to capture the love, laughter and tears – all the many facets surrounding the life and times of YOU! Through the use of writing prompts and personal story-telling it’s a fun and easy way to compile some great lifetime memories.
The bonus is that you also create a legacy. Tracking one’s lineage can tell your family WHERE they came from. BLESSED TO BE ME reveals WHO they came from! The stories left untold by previous generations are captured here. Find hope and inspiration from this personal reflection, and leave a treasured keepsake. Pick up a copy at Amazon.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
When Jean’s eyes locked with those of a smooshy-faced little dog who sat inside a kennel at the Humane Society, it was love! He captured her heart. She captured their many adventures in short stories starring ZUGGY THE RESCUE PUG. An advocate for adopting senior dogs, Jean has had her share of heartbreak when a beloved fur-family member passes away. To cope, her family has a tradition of telling their favorite stories about that dog at the dinner table. In doing this, Jean realized how much of our human legacy is lost within a single generation. Inspired, she created BLESSED TO BE ME. Visit the author’s website to learn more about all her books or follow her and Zuggy on Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube
Sweet Success is coordinated by Darby Karchut who is an award-winning author, dreamer, and compulsive dawn greeter. A proud native of New Mexico, she now lives in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, where she runs in blizzards and bikes in lightning storms. If you have a Sweet Success to share please contact her via email.
Whenever I’m asked what I write and I tell them space opera, I either get a blank look, or the inquirer exclaims, “Space opera? Oh, I love opera!” I then have to explain to them, no, it’s not OPERA. My characters don’t sing their way across the galaxy. So, what IS space opera?
Back to the Beginning
Let’s take a trip back in time, to the 1950s, back when radio was the main means of communication and entertainment. Radio stations broadcast serial dramas during the day, mostly when housewives were at home. The serials were often melodramatic, as operas tend to be, and open-ended, continuing with the story each weekday, and they were often sponsored or produced by soap manufacturers (“This program has been brought to you by Palmolive. Softens hands while you do dishes”), hence the term “soap opera.” Going back even further, to the 1930s, “horse opera” was first coined to describe a clichéd and formulaic Western movie. The term “space opera” was a play on words from both genres.
What Makes It “Opera”?
First of all, there’s no singing involved, just like there is no singing in soap operas, though the lone cowboy may sing about his troubles in a horse opera. In 1941, fan writer and author Wilson Tucker first used the term space opera, describing it as a “hacky, grinding, stinking, outworn, spaceship yarn.” You can see why it was first used as an insult to describe some science fiction back in the day.
“Opera” in Italian means “work,” referring to the collaborative labor of all involved. Soap operas are known for their melodramatic plots, which is also true of most operas, and could also be said Westerns, and some science fiction. Take Star Wars, which is considered space opera. It also has its collaborative work, and the melodramatic storyline (save the princess, fight the bad guy, the hero saves the day), but is also (with its spin-offs and Expanded Universe books) an on-going story like the soaps.
Why Not Call It Science Fiction?
I feel that space opera is one of those genres that gets lost in the shuffle. It’s a sub-genre of science fiction, but as opposed to hard science fiction, which is the more technology-based aspects and usually adheres to the laws of physics, space opera is “lighter” (for lack of a better word) though it can have hard science fiction elements, as seen with Dune. Space opera often emphasizes space battles, melodramatic adventures, and maybe a little romance, on an epic scale.
Because there is little understanding of what space opera is, I’ve taken to calling what I write “space fantasy” but that really isn’t what I write. The word fantasy tends to relate to made-up ideas and magic, which could be true about some space opera, but also could mean that no real technology is involved, no science, which space opera does have, albeit in unexplained or poorly explained ways (midichlorians, anyone?).
Next time when someone mentions “space opera” perhaps now you will think more along the lines of Star Wars, and less along the lines of La Traviata, characters blasting their way across the galaxy instead of singing about their tribulations.
Margena Adams Holmes has been writing ever since she can remember, writing her first poem in 1st grade. At her day job, when she’s not kicking young kids out of R-rated movies, she’s sweeping up spilled popcorn from the hallways and aisles (she’s not your mother, though, so please take your trash out). Her days off consist of writing science fiction, short stories, and more movie theater shenanigans. Reading is a close second to writing, and she normally has her nose buried in a book. Her publications are available through her author page. Contact Margena via email: jedi_anegram@hotmail.com.
Congratulations to these Pikes Peak Writers members on their various stories appearing in the Corrales Writing Group’s upcoming horror anthology entitled KALE IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD: Chris Allen, Maureen Cooke, Sandi Hoover, Jim Tritten, and Patricia Walkow (all members of PPW), contributed to the book. The following individuals also made either written or artistic contributions: Jane Butel (recipe), Sandi Cathcart (recipe), Adrienne Evatt (recipe), Alex Knight (art), Paul Knight (art), Jasmine Tritten (prose and art and also a member of PPW), and Walter Walkow (prose).
ABOUT THE BOOK: Kale has invaded our culture as the go-to food for healthy living, appearing everywhere on restaurant menus, in grocery stores and in beauty products like soaps and scrubs. It’s in salads and sandwiches, on pizzas, in soups and stews, and even salted as chips. For many, it shouts, “Eat me. I’m good for you.” For others, the vitamin load and beneficial fiber cannot outweigh the bitterness and texture of this member of the cabbage family. For those people, kale has ignited a passionate response, often reflected in internet memes and T-shirt slogans. This collection of short stories shows kale in a new light. Some stories present the perspective of those who introduce kale to their spouses and the reaction of those who are so targeted. A couple of tales are horror stories about kale’s effect on a life; another one describes a speculative history of kale; one is a murder mystery where kale plays an unusual role; and one is a fantasy about kale’s rivalry with another popular, competing vegetable, cauliflower. This book also has delicious recipes which feature kale as the primary ingredient. A word of caution, though. One recipe was written by someone with a novel approach to cooking kale.
KALE IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD releases September 2020. Pre-orders are now available at Amazon.
Sweet Success is coordinated by Darby Karchut who is an award-winning author, dreamer, and compulsive dawn greeter. A proud native of New Mexico, she now lives in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, where she runs in blizzards and bikes in lightning storms. If you have a Sweet Success to share please contact her via email.
We have returned for the second part of our conversation with queer authors Nonir Amicitia and Olivia Wylie. (Read Part-1 HERE).
Jason: When writing about the queer community, what are some things, you find, that the queer community worry about, fear, or have anxiety over? Can you give me some examples?
Nonir: Though there are some common fears that involve things like our rights being taken away, getting misgendered, being outed in a unsafe place by people who don’t know better or aren’t thinking. Basically, depending on where they are and what society looks like there, it’s varying shades of worrying about safety—which, again, can also apply to cishet folks as well.
Olivia: We’re not carrying any more diseases than you are. We’re not contagious. We’re not infectious. We’re not self-loathing by default. We do not have awful lives. Those are harmful tropes. Please dump them. If someone gets to know us and then talks about being under the rainbow themselves, it’s because we gave them the freedom and the language to describe themselves. Oh, and we’re not here to fix the straight main character. The magical negro is a trope that needs to be tossed, right? So is the Supporting Queer. Don’t make us sidekicks by default.
Jason: How, would you suggest, I incorporate that into my writing?
Olivia: Write characters who you could see living in your neighborhood. They will be embedded in a matrix of friends and family. They will have close ties to their community, their favorite hangouts, and the person they call when they’re down. Don’t tokenize your queer character by writing them like something exotic. They’re not a zebra. They’re a person FIRST.
Also, read more materials on the experiences of these communities. I’ve included a list of non-fiction resources below. For fiction, read these books with characters all over the rainbow. I tried to get something in from all sorts of genres.
Jason: What are some HUGE misunderstandings people outside the queer community have about people inside the queer community? Do you address those issues in your writing? How?
Nonir: The most common ones that come to mind are: a) being queer doesn’t define your personality or who you are (unless you want it to); and b) not everyone in the queer community is supportive of everyone else. As much as I’d like to say we’re one big happy rainbow family, it’s not true in the slightest. Though we do tend to travel in packs if we have the opportunity.
Olivia: We’re not all sassy. We’re not all slutty. We are NOT BROKEN. You can’t ‘straighten us out’ by showing us good straight sex. Or by scaring us about who we love. There is nothing to fix. There is nothing wrong with us. And I repeat: We’re not carrying any more diseases than you are. We’re not contagious. We’re not infectious. We’re not self-loathing by default. We do not have awful lives. Those are harmful tropes. Please dump them.
Oh, and last thing: we’re not all in-your-face. We’re not all sensitive. We’re not all ANYTHING. We’re people. Please treat us that way.
Jason: Do you have any suggested readings that would help our understandings?
Nonir: Blogs and nonfiction books by a variety of queer folks, especially those in the subsection of the community you’re interested in writing about.
Olivia: Reading list below
Trevor Lifeline: If you are a young person in crisis, feeling suicidal, or in need of a safe and judgment-free place to talk, call the Trevor Lifeline at 1-866-488-7386. Or text START to 678678.
Oh Joy Sex Toy: Oh Joy Sex Toy is the sexual education that everyone in the world needs. One of the most queer-friendly, colorful, and out-right positive webcomics out there. Got questions, go here:
Susan’s Place Transgender Resources: a peer support website for transgender individuals. The site is intended to be a safe space where transgender people can assist one another, and it has the additional mission of educating the public.
ACLU LGBT Rights: The ACLU works to ensure that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people can live openly without discrimination and enjoy equal rights, personal autonomy, and freedom of expression and association. If you are having legal or workplace issues, go to
Transgender American Veterans Association: Founded in 2003, the Transgender American Veterans Association (TAVA) is a 501 (c) 3 organization that acts proactively with other concerned gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) organizations to ensure that transgender veterans will receive appropriate care for their medical conditions in accordance with the Veterans Health Administration’s Customer Service Standards promise to “treat you with courtesy and dignity . . . as the first class citizen that you are.” Further, TAVA will help in educating the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Department of Defense (DoD) on issues regarding fair and equal treatment of transgender and transsexual individuals.
Everyone Is Gay: This is a collection of voices lending advice and support to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning/Queer, Intersex, and Asexual (LGBTQIA) youth, and also offers comprehensive lists of nationwide LGBTQIA resources.
Traversing Gender: Understanding Transgender Realities: This book, written by Lee Harrington, is a solid and approachable manual on transgender issues with an entire chapter of resources. If you’re exploring, it’s a great read. Take a look on the Zon at
Transcending Flesh: Gender and Body Diversity in Futuristic and Fantastical Settings, by Ana Mardoll: This guidebook contains a series of essays covering settings which feature fast, easy, and widely-accessible body alteration, including the futuristic BodyTron5000 (“step right in and we’ll jiffy up a uterus!”) and fantastical trips to the Gender Witch for magic potions. These settings have ripple effects on trans people both on and off the page, and writers must consider multiple angles of gender presentation and body diversity when creating new worlds. Grab it on the Zon at
Jason: What’s the one thing you want to leave the reader with?
Nonir: Writing queer characters doesn’t have to be hard, and shouldn’t be intimidating. Approach it respectfully and create interesting three-dimensional characters who are more than their sexuality or gender, and you’re off to a great start!
Olivia: Remember that you’re writing for people who are looking for characters they can see positive representation they can identify with. They’ve been denied it a very long time. It is a responsibility. But it is worth taking on.
Beyond that, just write people. We are people, with all the wonder, diversity, insecurity joy and pain that encompasses.
Jason Henry Evans says that life is funny. In 2004 he moved from Los Angeles to Denver, newly married with a desire to be a great teacher and husband. He dedicated himself to public education and realized his heart was not in it. So he moved on. At the same time he stumbled into a creative world of art and literature he now calls home. It hasn’t always been easy, but it has been worthwhile. You can catch up with Jason on his Facebook Author Page or on Twitter. You will also find up to date posts on his blog.
Congratulations to Debbie Burke on the June 23rd release of her latest thriller, DEAD MAN’S BLUFF.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
Investigator Tawny Lindholm’s plans for a romantic Florida vacation with attorney Tillman Rosenbaum vanish when they’re caught up in Hurricane Irma. Tillman’s beloved coach, Smoky, disappears into the storm, along with a priceless baseball card. Is he dead or on the run from a shady sports memorabilia dealer with a murderous grudge? During a desperate search in snake-infested floodwaters, Tawny becomes the bargaining chip in a high-stakes gamble. The winner lives, the loser dies. Purchase a copy on Amazon.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Debbie Burke writes thrillers with a heart. A regular blogger at The Kill Zone, her nonfiction articles have appeared in national and international publications. She is a founding member of Authors of the Flathead and helps to plan the annual Flathead River Writers Conference in Kalispell, Montana. Her greatest joy is mentoring young writers. The first book in Debbie’s series, INSTRUMENT OF THE DEVIL, won the 2016 Zebulon Award which led to her publishing contract. For more information about Debbie and her books, follow her on Twitter or visit her at www.debbieburkewriter.com
Sweet Success is coordinated by Darby Karchut who is an award-winning author, dreamer, and compulsive dawn greeter. A proud native of New Mexico, she now lives in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, where she runs in blizzards and bikes in lightning storms. If you have a Sweet Success to share please contact her via email.
Writing a novel is a lot like fly fishing: you tease, you tantalize, you toss your quarry a tidbit, and once they are so captivated by your offering, you reel them in.
And while our readers are a lot more intelligent than a fish, the principle works the same.
Readers want to get caught up in your story. They want to keep reading your book. They want to end with a huge sigh of relief because the story has concluded in a satisfying manner, answering all the questions that your opening paragraph, the cover, the genre, and the back cover copy promised.
If you don’t, they probably won’t read another of your books.
Unlike fishing for fish, hooks in books don’t just happen once—they’re an ongoing event. Every scene and chapter should begin and end with one. Readers won’t care about your characters and their predicaments unless you dangle a dilemma, pose a problem, or catapult a catastrophe at them.
So let’s look at hooks, their purpose, and their construction.
What is a Hook?
In literary terms, a hook is a sentence or paragraph, either at the beginning of a scene or chapter—the opening hook—or at the end of same—the closing hook—that makes the reader want to keep reading. We accomplish that goal by:
Asking a question
Suggesting a problem
Foreshadowing something to happen
Leaving our character in trouble (hence the old-fashioned term cliff hanger)
The form doesn’t really matter, but it’s wise to change up the structure so you don’t always begin with a problem and end with a question. That gets boring quick.
Opening Hook
The first opening hook, in either the Prologue or Chapter 1, is designed to draw your reader into reading the rest of the paragraph, the scene, the chapter, and ultimately, the entire book. This hook makes a promise to the reader that you will resolve the issue by the end of the book, in a satisfying manner.
Which is exactly why dream sequences are such a let down to the reader, since nothing is really resolved by starting the book with a dramatic nightmare. You get the reader wanting to know what’s happening, and why, but then CRASH! Ha, ha, it was all a dream.
The opening hook doesn’t have to be in the first line, but the sooner you grab the reader, the better. Absolutely the hook should be in the first paragraph. We get fifteen seconds from a reader for them to decide if they want to keep reading. They’ve already used some of that for the cover and back cover copy. Don’t waste time—let them know trouble is on the way.
That said, here are other ways to ensure the opening hook is well-constructed and reader-grabbing besides no dream sequences:
No weather, unless it’s used as a metaphor for the tone of the book.
No everyday stuff, like a character shopping, watching TV, making dinner, unless you get to the problem right away.
Anchor the reader immediately in the setting and time period.
No useless telephone chatter like, “Hi, how are you?” Go right to the punch line.
Make sure the tone and language is appropriate to reader expectations for the genre.
If possible, introduce the Point of View character for this scene immediately.
Examples:
Bad: Mary stared out the window. It was raining. Would the rain never stop? She felt so bad because her husband just died.
Better: Mary turned from the window. Staring out there wasn’t going to get the laundry done. Or the kids fed. Or the bills paid. And she was the only one left to do all three.
Best: The rain buffeted the window like gunshot pellets. Mary jerked back, the image too raw. Too new. Sheets of water obscured her view of the pier where her husband’s fishing boat bobbed on raging waves. No, not her husband’s. Hers.
Here we see, in the Best example, showing, not telling. Rain buffeted. Gunshot. Sheets of water. And questions are raised: why did the sound of gunshot pellets upset her so much? And why is the boat now hers, not her husband’s? Is he dead? Did they divorce?
Closing Hooks
These are the sentences that end a scene or chapter, and are every bit as crucial to keep the reader reading. That’s our goal. We want to hear that our readers couldn’t put the book down, that they stayed up all night and slept in the next morning. Like the opening hook, closing hooks pose a problem, suggest a situation, or quicken our hearts with a question.
The closing hook can lead directly into the next scene or chapter, or the topic of the hook may not be addressed or resolved again for several scenes. However, once that point of view character comes back on the scene, the bigger the issue, the sooner it must be resolved. In real life, we don’t simply ignore problems and situations—we deal with them.
Examples:
Bad: She could do nothing about Tim’s love for her right now, so instead she went to the mall. Shopping always cheered her up. She didn’t need a man, right?
Better: Tim was a jerk, and the sooner she was rid of him, the better. Now, should she go shopping, or should she fix dinner? Shopping it was—fewer calories.
Best: She strode into the mall, her heels tapping an angry staccato. She passed a bridal shop but kept her eyes straight ahead. A month ago, she’d window shopped at this very store, envying the slim models and trying to figure out how to make even the least expensive frothy gown fit her budget. Well, no more worries about that. Not only wasn’t the gown worth it, neither was Tim. The jerk.
In the Best example, once again, we see the scene instead of just hearing about it. Strode, angry staccato. Kept her eyes. . . ahead. Envying . . . slim models. We hear her heels. We feel her anger. Her humiliation. A suggestion about her body image. Even a mention of her small budget. Then we see her determination to get over it and get on with her life.
Conclusion
The best hooks will do what good writing should: show, not tell. They will be full of description, strong nouns, and active verbs that convey the mood and emotions of the character. They will also quicken the reader’s heart rate and page turn rate, endearing you to them so they continue to purchase subsequent books.
Donna Schlachter lives in Denver with husband Patrick. As a hybrid author, she writes historical suspense under her own name, and contemporary suspense under her alter ego of Leeann Betts, and has been published more than 30 times in novellas and full-length novels. She is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers, Writers on the Rock, Sisters In Crime, Pikes Peak Writers, and Christian Authors Network; facilitates a critique group; and teaches writing classes online and in person. Donna also ghostwrites, edits, and judges in writing contests. She loves history and research, and travels extensively for both. Donna is represented by Terrie Wolf of AKA Literary Management. Find Donna on: Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Smashwords, Etsy
Congratulations to Mike Torreano! He just signed a contract with The Wild Rose Press for his third western, titled A SCORE TO SETTLE. It’s set on a cattle drive on the Goodnight-Loving Trail in 1870 New Mexico Territory, the historic genesis for Larry McMurtry’s beloved LONESOME DOVEseries. The release is schedule for this summer and takes its place along with Mike’s other traditional western mysteries, THE RECKONING and THE RENEWAL, also from The Wild Rose Press.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
Del Lawson, a broken-hearted rancher, drifts aimlessly after his family is murdered. He signs on to a cattle drive along the Goodnight-Loving trail, unaware he’s still in danger. When he falls in love with Rose, a pretty Army nurse, the killers target her. Now, if he’s to recover from his grief and build a new life with her, Del must set out on a gritty hunt for the men who are hunting him.
Meanwhile, Del’s mother, who Del doesn’t know survived that murderous night, discovers the gold the killers are after. Vowing revenge, she uses the treasure in an elaborate masquerade aimed at taking the murderers down.
Will mother and son’s plans reap justice or destroy what’s left of the Lawson clan?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Mike Torreano has a military background and is a student of American history and the Old West.
His debut western mystery, THE RECKONING, set in South Park, Colorado, in 1868, released in 2016 by The Wild Rose Press. The sequel, THE REVEWAL, also in South Park, 1872, released in 2018.
Mike’s written for magazines and newspapers for many years. An experienced editor, he’s taught University-level English and Journalism. He’s a member of the Historical Novel Society, Pikes Peak Writers, Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, Western Writers of America and several other western writing groups. He brings his readers back in time with him as he recreates life in mid-to-late 19th century America. He lives in Colorado Springs with his wife, Anne.
For more information on Mike and all his publications, visit him at miketorreano.com.
Sweet Success is coordinated by Darby Karchut who is an award-winning author, dreamer, and compulsive dawn greeter. A proud native of New Mexico, she now lives in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, where she runs in blizzards and bikes in lightning storms. If you have a Sweet Success to share please contact her via email.
