Restart: Tam’s Tales and The Old West

Most people know me as a romance author, which I most definitely am. Yet for a long time now, I’ve had a passion project prodding at the back of my mind. After the release of my latest romantasy, Shaman, I suddenly had a burning desire to tackle that passion project.

Over the next year, I’ll be sharing tidbits and updates on that project. If you’re a western history buff, this space will will become your go-to read.

For a hundred years, Hollywood has been pushing a narrative of the Old West that was mostly fantasy–except for in one short-lived, northwest Wyoming town. Nothing is left of that town that once entertained the likes of Butch and Sundance, Kid Curry, Rose Williams, Otto Franc, and Belle Drewry. Nothing, that is, except for a few rescued and repurposed buildings in the sleepy little berg of Meeteetse, Wyoming; a few more rescued buildings along the dusty museum boardwalks of Old Trail Town in Cody, Wyoming–and the fascinating story of hard drinking, high-stakes gambling, prostitution, and murders for passion and revenge.

Belle Drewry and the town of Arland, Wyoming have intrigued me from the first time I laid eyes Larry Edgar’s Woman in Blue. The lawless wildness that actually happened in Arland is exactly what Hollywood was going for in films and TV shows about Dodge City and Tombstone. But those towns were tame compared to Arland.

I’ve tentatively titled my next book Outlaw Blue. It is not a romance. No happily-ever-after is possible when nearly everyone of consequence dies in the end. This is historical fiction. I haven’t given anything away that you can’t read on a roadside marker outside of Meeteetse. The fascinating part, the fun part, is in the details that lead up to the tragic end. I’ll be sharing some of those details and stories that don’t make it into the book here. So keep your eye on this space.