Rose of Greenwood is my thirty-third western/frontier novel. I wrote it in the spring of 2022, when the Five Star western/frontier line was still going, but submission of the manuscript was delayed, and when Five Star discontinued its western line later in 2022, this novel went in search of a home. Thanks to the efforts of my agent, Cherry Weiner, the novel was accepted by Speaking Volumes and was published in October of 2023.

In this novel, a ranch hand named Tip Creston comes to the town of Greenwood. Tip is about forty years old, and he has become disenchanted with working for big cattlemen because of their tendency to push around smaller operators and, in some cases such as the Johnson County War, to do them harm. So Tip has taken up a homestead of his own and is undergoing a bit of a life change after being a hired man on horseback for many years.

Not long after his arrival, Tip hears of the disappearance of a fifteen-year-old Romanian girl ten years earlier. Because she comes from a family of sheep tenders, her disappearance did not cause a substantial investigation, but her family and her disconsolate former suitor have not forgotten her.

Before much more time goes by, Tip learns that his neighbor on one side, a small-time rancher, has been having an affair with the wife of another neighbor, a well-to-do wheat farmer. When the wheat farmer is found dead, suspicion falls on the small rancher. Tip is more interested in the story about the Romanian girl, but people in the area are more interested in the death of the prosperous farmer. Tip hears the story of his neighbor, the philandering rancher, and he also hears stories from the immigrant working class, including a young Norwegian woman named Lena. 

As the story progresses, a couple of more people die. With Tip’s efforts, the truth comes out about what happened to the Romanian girl and how her disappearance is related to the more recent deaths. 

With this novel, as with my other works, I tried to write a story that mattered, a story about an average citizen who is able to help find the truth about wrongs in a frontier town. I was glad to see the work come out in trade paperback and e-book, and as always, I hope it meets with success.

Rose of Greenwood is available at Amazon.

Share to your friends!