Tag Archives: Biographical Fiction

Proud Outcast Virtual Book Tour

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Days of War, Days of Peace, Volume 2

 

Native American Literature, Biographical Fiction, Western

Date Published: 01-21-2025

Publisher: Hat Creek

 

 

Defying betrayal and hardship, Chato fights to save his family and his
people’s rightful place in the West.

As the Apache Wars roar toward their conclusion in the summer of 1886,
renowned Apache army scout and leader Chato joins a delegation of scouts to
Washington, D.C., to meet President Grover Cleveland. Their mission? To
plead their case for the Chiricahua scouts to remain at Fort Apache and
cultivate their lands in peace.

For his unwavering loyalty and service, Chato is awarded a silver medal
from Cleveland, along with the implied promise that the scouts can stay
where they are. However, after Geronimo’s surrender, Chato and his fellow
scouts are instead transported to the harsh confines of Fort Marion,
Florida, as prisoners of war. They, and the Chiricahua people as a whole,
will be deprived of their freedom and their way of life for the next three
decades.

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EXCERPT

Excerpt 1  From Introduction

Proud Outcast is the second of two novels about the Apache chief and warrior Pedes-klinje, or as the Mexicans called him, Chato (meaning “Flat Nose”). The first book, Desperate Warrior, covered the years from 1877 to 1886, when Chato often rode with Geronimo as his segundo (second in command) in numerous raids and battles, especially in Mexico, after they escaped San Carlos Reservation in September 1881. During the years in Mexico, Chato lost a wife and two children to Mexican slavery after they were captured during a Rarámuri (aka Tarahumara) Indian attack led by Mexican military on the great Nednhi Chief Juh’s winter camp in January 1883.

Losing his family was a defining event in Chato’s life. He was desperate to get his family back and out of Mexican slavery. Five months after his family was taken, General Crook offered to get them back through high-level negotiations between the Chihuahuan state in Mexico and his big chiefs in Washington. Realizing this was his last, best hope of getting his family back, Chato

vowed allegiance to the Army and to General Crook.

Chato understood that for General Crook’s offer to work in retrieving his family, Geronimo had to stay peaceful on the reservation and not escape to raid in Mexico, Arizona, and New Mexico. He told Geronimo that if he left the reservation, he would destroy Crook’s ability to get their families out of slavery, and he, Chato, would find and drag him back to the San Carlos guardhouse in chains. The White Eyes would imprison him there or on the little land in the western big water, Alcatraz, for years. Geronimo called Chato a traitor and a liar, and when he broke out of Fort Apache Reservation tried to have him killed. They remained enemies until Geronimo’s dying day twenty-four years later.

The lives of Chato and Geronimo show striking similarities. Some historians have called Chato “Geronimo’s doppelgänger.” Although Geronimo was about thirty years older than Chato, they both claimed supernatural powers, rode together on many raids, were on the same reservations at the same time, lost wives and children to Mexican slavery and were deadly rifle shots. Both men became Christians but then left the church to become again believers in the Apache creator god, Ussen. Geronimo was the acknowledged leader of the Chiricahua faction that wanted war to settle differences with the White Eyes. Chato was a major leader of the peace faction that believed peace with the White Eyes was necessary for Chiricahua survival.

Chato’s story of captivity and release to freedom is told in Proud Outcast, which covers the years from 1886 to 1934. During this time, Chato survived betrayal by the Army as a prisoner of war and endured, with his head held high, being treated as an outcast by some of his own People after they were freed. As Desperate Warrior said, Chato’s story is taken from history, but its truth is told through fiction as imaginatively seen through the eyes of Chato, whom Lieutenant Britton Davis, his former commander, described in 1929 as “the finest man, red or white, I ever knew.”

 

About the Author

W. Michael Farmer

W. Michael Farmer combines ten-plus years of research into
nineteenth-century Apache history and culture with Southwest-living
experience to fill his stories with a genuine sense of time and place. A
retired Ph.D. physicist, his scientific research has included measurement of
atmospheric aerosols with laser-based instruments, and he has published a
two-volume reference book on atmospheric effects on remote sensing. He has
also written short stories for anthologies and award-winning essays. His
first novel, Hombrecito’s War, won a Western Writers of America Spur
Finalist Award for Best First Novel in 2006 and was a New Mexico Book Award
Finalist for Historical Fiction in 2007. His other novels include:
Hombrecito’s Search; Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright: The Betrayals of
Pancho Villa; and Conspiracy: The Trial of Oliver Lee and James Gililland.
His Killer of Witches, The Life and Times of Yellow Boy, Mescalero Apache,
Book 1 won a Will Rogers Medallion Award and was a New Mexico–Arizona
Book Awards Finalist in 2106. Mariana’s Knight, The Revenge of Henry
Fountain won the 2017 New Mexico–Arizona Book Award for Historical
Fiction and Blood of the Devil, The Life and Times of Yellow Boy, Mescalero
Apache, Book 2 was a finalist.

These two novels have also won 2018 Silver Medallion Will Rogers Awards.
Apacheria, True Stories of Apache Culture, 1860-1920 won the 2018 New
Mexico–Arizona Book Award for History-Other (Other than New Mexico or
Arizona), Best New Mexico Book in 2018, a gold medallion in the 2019 Will
Rogers Awards for History-Young Folks, and named one of the twenty best
books on the southwest by the Pima County (Phoenix and surrounding area)
Library System. In 2019 Knight’s Odyssey and Knight of the Tiger won
gold medallions in the Will Rogers Medallion Awards, and Knight of the Tiger
won the 2019 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award for Fiction-Adventure NM.

The author is continuing work on two histories and two novels to be
released in 2019 through 2021 about the captivity and wars of Geronimo.
Geronimo: Prisoner of Lies, Twenty-Three Years as a Prisoner of War is a
history of what happened to Geronimo after he surrendered in 1886 and was
published in October 2019. The Odyssey of Geronimo, a novel about his years
in captivity, will be published in May 2020. The history of Geronimo’s
last ten years of war and peace before his surrender, An Apache Iliad, and
the companion novel, The Iliad of Geronimo, A Song of Blood and Fire are
expected to be published in 2021.

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Proud Outcast Week Blast

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Days of War, Days of Peace, Volume 2

 

Native American Literature, Biographical Fiction, Western

Date Published: 01-21-2025

Publisher: Hat Creek

 

 

Defying betrayal and hardship, Chato fights to save his family and his
people’s rightful place in the West.

As the Apache Wars roar toward their conclusion in the summer of 1886,
renowned Apache army scout and leader Chato joins a delegation of scouts to
Washington, D.C., to meet President Grover Cleveland. Their mission? To
plead their case for the Chiricahua scouts to remain at Fort Apache and
cultivate their lands in peace.

For his unwavering loyalty and service, Chato is awarded a silver medal
from Cleveland, along with the implied promise that the scouts can stay
where they are. However, after Geronimo’s surrender, Chato and his fellow
scouts are instead transported to the harsh confines of Fort Marion,
Florida, as prisoners of war. They, and the Chiricahua people as a whole,
will be deprived of their freedom and their way of life for the next three
decades.

About the Author

W. Michael Farmer

W. Michael Farmer combines ten-plus years of research into
nineteenth-century Apache history and culture with Southwest-living
experience to fill his stories with a genuine sense of time and place. A
retired Ph.D. physicist, his scientific research has included measurement of
atmospheric aerosols with laser-based instruments, and he has published a
two-volume reference book on atmospheric effects on remote sensing. He has
also written short stories for anthologies and award-winning essays. His
first novel, Hombrecito’s War, won a Western Writers of America Spur
Finalist Award for Best First Novel in 2006 and was a New Mexico Book Award
Finalist for Historical Fiction in 2007. His other novels include:
Hombrecito’s Search; Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright: The Betrayals of
Pancho Villa; and Conspiracy: The Trial of Oliver Lee and James Gililland.
His Killer of Witches, The Life and Times of Yellow Boy, Mescalero Apache,
Book 1 won a Will Rogers Medallion Award and was a New Mexico–Arizona
Book Awards Finalist in 2106. Mariana’s Knight, The Revenge of Henry
Fountain won the 2017 New Mexico–Arizona Book Award for Historical
Fiction and Blood of the Devil, The Life and Times of Yellow Boy, Mescalero
Apache, Book 2 was a finalist.

These two novels have also won 2018 Silver Medallion Will Rogers Awards.
Apacheria, True Stories of Apache Culture, 1860-1920 won the 2018 New
Mexico–Arizona Book Award for History-Other (Other than New Mexico or
Arizona), Best New Mexico Book in 2018, a gold medallion in the 2019 Will
Rogers Awards for History-Young Folks, and named one of the twenty best
books on the southwest by the Pima County (Phoenix and surrounding area)
Library System. In 2019 Knight’s Odyssey and Knight of the Tiger won
gold medallions in the Will Rogers Medallion Awards, and Knight of the Tiger
won the 2019 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award for Fiction-Adventure NM.

The author is continuing work on two histories and two novels to be
released in 2019 through 2021 about the captivity and wars of Geronimo.
Geronimo: Prisoner of Lies, Twenty-Three Years as a Prisoner of War is a
history of what happened to Geronimo after he surrendered in 1886 and was
published in October 2019. The Odyssey of Geronimo, a novel about his years
in captivity, will be published in May 2020. The history of Geronimo’s
last ten years of war and peace before his surrender, An Apache Iliad, and
the companion novel, The Iliad of Geronimo, A Song of Blood and Fire are
expected to be published in 2021.

Contact Links

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Facebook

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Instagram

 

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Amazon

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Shattered Pieces Can Still Shine Blitz

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Shattered Pieces Can Still Shine cover

Georgie’s story

 

Historical fiction, Biographical Fiction

 

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This story loosely based on a real-life story, is about Georgie, a child
born to a single mother just after WW2 in a small village in Cumberland.
After an initially happy first few years of childhood during which Georgie
dreams of becoming a dancer, she finds herself the victim of sexual and
psychological abuse by her stepfather, and then neglect and rejection by
both her mother and her absent father. Eventually Georgie runs away to
London where, after a short period of rough-sleeping, life seems to become
more positive for a while, and she is able to kick start her dancing career.
But things go badly wrong, and Georgie finds herself imprisoned into a life
she did not choose, with little chance of escaping. She had rarely prayed to
God, but it seemed He was watching over her …

Shattered Pieces Can Still Shine paperback

EXCERPT

 

CHAPTER 12

 

Early February 1952

Disclosure

 

Life had become almost normal for Georgie once Mummy was back home. The
five-year-old felt at peace, but somehow couldn’t quite find the old
bouncing Georgie that she once was. Neither could she bring herself to call
the monster Daddy anymore. Georgie knew that Mummy had put it down to her
having grown up a lot while she was away. Pattie and Robert had appeared to
be less worried about her too, which Georgie thought was because they knew
her mummy was now there to monitor the situation.

A month passed by until one Sunday morning early in February Mummy
announced that she was popping down to see Pattie for a couple of hours for
a catchup.

“Would you mind keeping an eye on the girls for me, please, Gerald?
It would be lovely to have a bit of girlie time with Pattie on our own.
Daisy’s just gone down for a nap, so she shouldn’t be a
problem.”

Georgie had overheard what Mummy had said as she sat on the settee in the
living room quietly reading her book about the girl who became a dancer and
dreaming of her longed-for future. When Mummy popped her head around the
door to say goodbye, she asked Mummy if she could go with her.

“Not this time, Baby, you’d be bored anyway. It will just be me
and Pattie chattering away as usual. You and Daddy could play your chasing
game like you used to. I haven’t seen you two laughing together once
since I came out of hospital. Daisy’s fast asleep in her cot so you
don’t have to amuse her. Have some fun.”

Then Mummy disappeared, leaving Georgie sitting on the edge of the settee,
holding tightly on to her book. Should she stay where she was and keep
quiet, hoping not to attract the monster’s attention? Tingling fear
crept its way up her tense body, switching her mind on to red alert. Maybe
she could creep outside to the front garden and play five-stones in the
lane. Somehow, she would feel safer outside. She would still hear Daisy if
she woke up, so at least she’d know her little sister was safe. Yes,
that’s what she would do. She crept into the hallway and slipped her
coat off the stair post. She would put it on once she was outside. She
walked quietly over to the front door, holding her breath, but as she lifted
her hand to turn the knob, she jumped at the sound of the monster’s
voice.

“Where d’you think you’re going?”

It took all Georgie’s control to stop her voice quaking as she turned
to him.

“Just going out to play five-stones in the lane.”

He approached her, took her coat, and put it back over the stair
post.

“Upstairs now.”

Georgie immediately obeyed. She remembered his threat and knew that she had
to protect her little sister. He followed closely behind. At the top of the
stairs, he guided her into the bathroom and locked the door behind
him.

“Kneel down in front of the toilet.”

She obeyed.

“Open the lid.”

She obeyed. He loosened his trousers, and she immediately knew what she had
to do. He approached her.

Afterwards, he left the bathroom, leaving Georgie vomiting down the toilet.
When she’d finished, she flushed away the proof of her action, rinsed
her mouth out with water from the washbasin, and quietly exited into her
bedroom to check that Daisy was safe. Pale-faced and trembling, she knelt on
her bed to look out of the window and down the lane where she knew her mummy
was. She didn’t notice the monster return quietly to her room, so his
loud whisper made her jump.

“Get back downstairs to your book, now.”

Georgie was paralysed to the spot for a long moment. Was he going to touch
Daisy? Then she felt the harsh grip of his hand on her arm, pulling her off
the bed and guiding her out of her bedroom and down each step, including the
creaky one, until she found herself shoved back onto the settee. He picked
up her precious dancer book and for a painful moment she held her breath,
fearing that he was going to destroy it. Instead, he pushed it into her
hands before turning away and returning to the kitchen. Georgie was numb.
She sat there for several minutes, clinging on to the book, knowing that she
didn’t have the option of crying, because her mummy would notice her
red face and swollen eyes. Suddenly she heard the front door open and saw
Mummy enter.

“Don’t tell me you’re still reading that same old book of
yours, Baby?

Georgie used every bit of her willpower to force a smile onto her face as
Mummy took off her coat and placed it on the stair post over Georgie’s
coat. As she did so, there was a small cry from Daisy, and Mummy tripped
upstairs to retrieve her baby. As she came back downstairs holding Daisy,
Georgie jumped up from the settee to meet them, immediately responding to
her little sister’s open arms and taking her from Mummy.

“Ger, Ger,” the child gurgled as Mummy smiled and headed
towards the kitchen, leaving Daisy with her big sister.

Georgie was happy to be distracted from what had happened by amusing Daisy
for the rest of the day and avoiding the monster in the process. It
wasn’t until she got into bed that night, and endured Mummy and the
monster coming up together to tuck her in, that she gave way to the silent
tears that she had been swallowing since the incident. As sleep eventually
overtook her, she decided that she would disclose her secret to Mummy and
beg her not to tell. She knew she couldn’t continue the way things
were.

As it happened, Mummy broached the subject herself. Georgie came out of
school on the Monday afternoon to find Mummy, with Daisy in her pram,
waiting for her as usual. As they were walking home, Georgie holding on to
the side of the pram handle and making Daisy laugh by repeatedly leaning
towards her little sister and pretending that she was about to tickle her,
Mummy spoke.

“Georgie, Babe, what’s wrong? Won’t you tell me why you
always look so serious these days? What’s happened to your bounce? I
really miss it.”

Georgie knew that this was her opportunity, so she took a deep breath and
keeping her eyes on the ground, she opened up to Mummy, who she knew loved
her more than life itself.

“He’s been doing things to me, Mummy, and I don’t like
it. He said he would really hurt me and Daisy if I told anyone.”

It was such a relief to get the words out that Georgie allowed the tears to
trickle down her cheeks and plop to the ground.

“What do you mean, Baby? Who has been doing things to you and what
has he been doing?”

“Gerald. When you were in hospital, he did things to me in my bed,
and made me do things that made me sick.”

“What are you talking about? Why are you calling your daddy Gerald?
What things did he do to you?”

“He touched me between my legs, he put his thing in my mouth, and one
time he put his thing inside me, and it hurt me so bad, Mummy, that it made
me bleed.”

“Georgie, daddies don’t do things like that to their little
girls. These are terrible things to say about your daddy. Where on earth
have you heard such things in the first place? Have you been listening to
the bad kids in the school playground?”

Georgie gulped. She was shocked into silence. Her own mummy didn’t
believe her.

“Georgie, I never want to hear you say such outrageous things again.
Do you hear me?”

Georgie’s eyes didn’t leave the ground. She knew it was
pointless arguing. She just nodded. The rest of the way home was spent in
silence. Even little Daisy went quiet as if she sensed that something was
wrong.

 

About the Author

Gloria Eveleigh

Gloria Eveleigh has three adult children and five grandchildren. She lives
on England’s south coast but was born in South London just after WW2.
She grew up on a council estate, experiencing familial sexual, physical and
psychological abuse within a dysfunctional family. Despite this, she did
well at school and spent the first part of her career as a research
scientist. She then studied to become a social worker, specialising in the
area of safeguarding, and eventually running her own safeguarding
consultancy. She is now a champion for survivors of abuse and uses her
writing and regular posts on social media to ensure that the issue of abuse
in all its forms is kept high in the public narrative. Through this, Gloria
hopes to break down the wall of silence that often prevents victims from
reporting, and in effect protects the perpetrators.

As a child when abuse was hidden, not believed, and not acknowledged,
Gloria’s experiences resulted in an emotional life sentence. She
managed to turn this around, and is now a champion for abuse survivors,
using her writing and social media posts to keep the issue of all forms of
abuse high in the public narrative.

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Salvation Virtual Book Tour

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Historical Fiction / Biographical Fiction

 

Date Published: September 15, 2021

Publisher: TouchPoint Press

No one ever talks about what happened …

Summer 1971, Del Munro, a single mother of four, is struggling to make ends meet when Mother Franklin, a traveling evangelist, offers to take her daughters to the beach in Savannah.

For nine-year-old Willie June and seven-year-old Glory, restless at the end of a long, hot summer in Charlotte, it’s a dream come true. To their beleaguered mother, it’s a much-needed reprieve.

But what seemed like a blessing soon turns into a nightmare when the girls are pressed into service by the morbidly obese Mother Franklin whose needs are as outsized as her ambitions.

When the girls fail to return, Del, evasive about the details of her arrangement with Mother Franklin, panics. People begin to wonder if instead of sending her daughters on vacation, she sold them to the evangelist.

Salvation tablet

Excerpt 

 

Luther was Mother Franklin’s driver. At least that’s how he thought of himself. He spent a lot of time waiting around on her; her being so big and all meant she was a slow mover. He’d stand for what seemed like hours waiting for the old woman in one churchyard or another. This time of year, when the grass was brown and crackly and clover was the only thing showing green on the ground, he would kick at it with his shoe, grinding the clover until it disappeared in the red dirt.

That’s what that fat old woman was doing to him.Grinding him down.It wasn’t like she was really paying him.He was just part of her—what’d she call it?—retinue. My driver. A plate for my driver, she’d demand and the church ladies always did provide. It wasn’t begging. But it was charity. What he’d like was a little cash in his pocket. Even when they pulled into a filling station she’d get the bills out of her black square of a pocketbook and not let go of them ’til he was done pumping. Two dollars, she’d bawl in her wheezy old voice, and not a drop more!

Even though technically the station wagon wasn’t his, Luther watched over it like a jealous lover, noticing every little hint of trespass—fingerprints on the windows, mud on the floor, crumbs. He kept a little whisk broom under the driver’s seat and a red rag, worn soft, that he folded in half and then in thirds and tucked up under the visor. Every time they stopped for gas, he swept the floorboard on the driver side and wiped down the dash. When Mother Franklin was doing her business, he’d whisk her side of the car as well.

He was sure this dust-covered, paneled wagon would do better if they just filled it up to the top of the tank every once and again.He wasn’t anything more than a shade tree mechanic but he knew where to poke around under the hood and it was looking like there were going to be some serious problems soon enough.

About the Author

Avery Caswell

Avery Caswell is an award-winning writer whose debut novel, Salvation, will be published on September 15, 2021. Her previous work includes a collection of short stories, MOTHER LOAD, which Kirkus called “stunning” and LUCK: A COLLECTION OF FACTS, FICTION, POETRY & INCANTATIONS, which Lee Smith said was “a feast for the eyes, the intellect, and the imagination.” She studied at Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Duke Writers’ Workshop, and holds MFAs in Creative Writing and Design.

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Salvation Blitz

 

Salvation cover

 

Historical Fiction / Biographical Fiction

 

Date Published: September 15, 2021

Publisher: TouchPoint Press

No one ever talks about what happened …

Summer 1971, Del Munro, a single mother of four, is struggling to make ends meet when Mother Franklin, a traveling evangelist, offers to take her daughters to the beach in Savannah.

For nine-year-old Willie June and seven-year-old Glory, restless at the end of a long, hot summer in Charlotte, it’s a dream come true. To their beleaguered mother, it’s a much-needed reprieve.

But what seemed like a blessing soon turns into a nightmare when the girls are pressed into service by the morbidly obese Mother Franklin whose needs are as outsized as her ambitions.

When the girls fail to return, Del, evasive about the details of her arrangement with Mother Franklin, panics. People begin to wonder if instead of sending her daughters on vacation, she sold them to the evangelist.

About the Author

Avery Caswell

Avery Caswell is an award-winning writer whose debut novel, Salvation, will be published on September 15, 2021. Her previous work includes a collection of short stories, MOTHER LOAD, which Kirkus called “stunning” and LUCK: A COLLECTION OF FACTS, FICTION, POETRY & INCANTATIONS, which Lee Smith said was “a feast for the eyes, the intellect, and the imagination.” She studied at Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Duke Writers’ Workshop, and holds MFAs in Creative Writing and Design.

Contact Links

Website

Facebook

Twitter

Blog

Goodreads

Instagram

Purchase Links

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Kobo

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Comments Off on Salvation Blitz

Filed under BOOKS