Month: May 2019

Good Water Commentary

Good Water is my twenty-fifth western/frontier novel and my sixth book with Five Star Publishing. I wrote it in the first part of 2015, and it came out in the latter part of 2016. For this novel, I tried a couple of approaches with which I had not done much, and so it took me a while to get the plan ironed out.

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Death in Cantera Commentary

Death in Cantera is my twenty-fourth western/frontier novel, my fifth book with Five Star, and my second Dunbar story. I wrote it in 2013, and it came out in early 2016. By the time I wrote this novel, I had an established relationship with Five Star, so I could think about writing a story with that publisher in mind. Also, because Dark Prairie had done well with reviews, sales, and an award, and because the people at Five Star liked Dunbar, I had encouragement to write another novel with him as the somewhat mysterious sleuth.

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Justice at Redwillow Commentary

Justice at Redwillow is my twenty-third western/frontier novel and my fourth with Five Star in its hardcover frontier line. It was published in August of 2015.

I began working on ideas for this story line in 2011, but I struggled quite a bit with some of the elements. I think some of my uncertainties may have come from my status, as this was the period between the time when Dorchester ended its western line and the time when Five Star began its frontier line. As mentioned in other commentaries, I had begun working with an agent, but the various commercial publishing companies were wary of taking on new writers, and some of them had a rather narrow idea of what kinds of stories they wanted. I came to appreciate Dorchester, who, in spite of wanting things to be recognizable traditional westerns, was willing to accept stories that were a bit atypical and varied.

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Don’t Be a Stranger Commentary

Don’t Be a Stranger is my twenty-second western/frontier novel, published by Five Star Publishing in February of 2015. It was published before Justice at Redwillow, although I wrote them in the opposite order. I wrote them both while things were getting under way with Five Star and its frontier line. During that time, Dark Prairie was going through the acceptance, editing, and production process, and Across the Cheyenne River was making its way onto the list.

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