We've created a reading group that you can join here, and we'll be discussing a WWW author's novel each month. This month we're reading Ann Parker's first novel in the Silver Rush mystery series entitled Silver Lies. Here's a comment from Ann in our ongoing conversation:
"Inez Stannert is my paternal grandmother's maiden name. She came to Leadville as a young child (her father was a blacksmith) until she was about 18, at which time she and her mother (!I cannot find a trace of her father, anywhere, after this time) moved to Denver. Granny never spoke to me about Leadville ... so it was a complete shock to me to find out (long after her death) that she had spent her formative years there. It was this bit of family history that started me on the path to researching Leadville and the creation of the Silver Rush series. The real Inez never set foot in a saloon, bar, or any other such place. But I wanted to name my protagonist after Granny, as a tribute of sorts. I checked with my relatives and they all agreed she would have been quite tickled by it ...A librarian once described the character Inez as "Miss Kitty [from the old TV series 'Gunsmoke'] unchained!" I rather liked that! There were women who ran/managed saloons in Leadville, but not many. Out of 300 or so saloon owners listed in the 1880 census, 3 were women." You can read the prologue to Silver Lies at the author's website. Buy the book at amazon.com or your local bookstore and join us for a fascinating summer read.
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