July Member News

Congratulations to our members' new releases and for all the award nominations!

Marsha Ward, Faith and the Foreman. New Yorker Faith Bannister's circumstances force her to become a school teacher in faraway Arizona Territory. Harsh conditions don't seem so overwhelming when Faith meets lanky Slim McHenry. But menacing Rance Hunter stands in the way of Faith and Slim's happiness. Both must rally all their resources and act to overcome evil before it spreads. This standalone novella bundled with a Western short story, The Usual Game, which is set in early-day Jerome, Arizona.

Verl might not make it home to Phoenix this weekend. His landlord is stuck in Happy Sam's usual poker game, and it looks like he's losing his entire savings. High stakes action in early Arizona.

Susan D. Matley (writing as S. D. Matley), “Transformed,” a short story, is included in UnintendedConsequences, a new anthology from Colorado micro-press WolfSinger Publications. “Transformed” is the story of a lazy man who attempts to change his ways (and win back his estranged wife) by taking a miracle supplement. If you have the urge to read out-of-genre (male protagonist in a comic-horror tale), I hope you’ll give it a try! You can find the anthology here: 

Paty Jager, Brody: Letters of Fate, After receiving a letter, Brody Yates finds himself escorted across the country to work on a ranch rather than entering prison, but a revenge driven criminal, the Oregon high desert, and his grandfather’s beautiful ward may prove more dangerous than anything he’d faced on the New York docks.

2016 Will Rogers Medallion Award Finalists

Western Fiction --

* W. Michael Farmer - “Killer of Witches”

* Tammy Hinton - “The Judas Steer”

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Western Romance --

* Linda Shuler - “Dark Shadows”

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Inspirational Fiction --

* Jane Kirkpatrick - “The Memory Weaver”

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Biographies & Memoirs --

* Roni McFadden - “The Longest Trail”

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Short Stories --

* Deanna Dickinson McCall - “Rough Patches”

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Cookbooks --

* Sherry Monahan - “The Cowboy’s Cookbook"

Roni McFadden, The Longest Trail, also made the short-list for the Journey Award.
"The Longest Trail carries readers through a spellbinding work by Willits, CA author Roni McFadden. As a young teen, McFadden left behind the confusion and pain of her unhappy preteen years. She tells of how she went up ~ up onto horses, up the road to a man who could help her, and up the mountain, to where she could see clearly and breathe deeply. And, finally, up to another place where only some can go."

March Member News

What a great lineup of new novels and awards this month! Congratulations to you all!

Janet Fisher, The Shifting Winds (Globe Pequot Press/Two Dot) Jennie Haviland’s father takes the family west over the Oregon Trail in 1842, tearing Jennie away from her prestigious academy in New York and forcing her to face a lonely wilderness across the continent. In Oregon she meets two young men, handsome British Hudson's Bay Company clerk Alan Radford and brash American mountain man Jake Johnston. The two vie for her as their nations vie for this rich contested territory, but Jennie wants choices of her own.

Bonnie Hobbs, Sweet Justice. Wounded by her fiance's betrayal, Rachel Logan returns to her father's ranch in Arizona Territory determined to live an independent life. Kol Hawk comes home after ten years in Yuma Prison for attempting to kill Rachel's father, believing him responsible for the deaths of a Pima woman and her daughter. As they come together to find the truth, can they also find solace in each other? 

 

Sarah Byrn Rickman, WASP of the Ferry Command (University of North Texas Press) is the personalized story of the women pilots who, when qualified male pilots were in short supply early in World War II, volunteered to fly brand new trainer aircraft from factories to the training fields in Texas and elsewhere. Then the women's job changed dramatically when, in January 1944, they were needed to deliver sleek, powerful P-51 fighter aircraft to the docks at Newark, NJ, for shipment to the war zone. Ultimately, those P-51s were the key to the victory over the German Reich because they had the range to escort and protect the four-engine bombers on raids all the way from England to Berlin and back. 

   Enter code 3B at checkout for a 30 percent discount. The code will expire on 4/3/2016.

  

AWARDS

Julie Weston, Moonshadows, won Finalist in the May Sarton Literary Award in the category of historical fiction.

Donis Casey, All Men Fear Me, is a finalist in the fiction category for the 2016 Oklahoma Book Award.

Nancy Bo Flood, Water Runs Through This Book (Fulcrum, photographs by Jan Sonnenmair), an informational book about the wonder of water and the need for conservation, has been recognized as a Green Earth qualified book.


 

Nancy Bo Flood, Soldier Sister, Fly Home, (Charlesbridge, cover art by Shonto Begay), is a Junior Library Guild selection,. This contemporary middle-grade novel is a celebration of family, riding horses pell-mell in the dark, sharing secrets with a sister, and the beauty of the Navajo desert.

Sandra Dallas, The Last Midwife (St. Martin's Press), Winner Traditional Novel, Western Writers of America Spur Awards. 

Jane Kirkpatrick, The Memory Weaver (Revell) earned the Finalist Spur status for Best
Historical Novel.