The More Things Change...
I wrote Grace be a Lady with the sole intention of righting a wrong--at least on paper.
In 1889, a 28-year-old female rancher sassed a cattle baron one time too many. He and a handful of his henchmen took her and her husband/partner and lynched them. Ellen Watson was the first female hung in Wyoming.
And the press dubbed her the notorious Cattle Kate. The newspapers ran cover for the wealthy, elite ranchers in the area, smearing Ellen by labeling her a whore and a cattle thief.
The more things change, huh?
Her killers were never prosecuted and witnesses in the case "went missing."
And the corruption in Johnson County exploded from there.
Grace be a Lady is a fictionalized version of things in the county a few years after Ellen's death. Grace was intended to be the first book of 3, and I still want to do that but other projects have kept getting in the way.
Eventually, there was a form of justice for Ellen--the entire county turned against the cattle barons and scared them so much that most of them skulked off into the darkness. Literally.
In this first book, though, you get a good look at how the rich, selfish, snobbish elites couldn't believe the local rabble thought they had the right to own their own cattle. And my hero and heroine are right in the middle of the fight--forced to choose sides and grasp the darkness in people they trusted.
It is a romance with a happy ending. BUT, as you read it, watch the parallels playing out around us today. Maybe it will comfort you that bad men have been trying to beat down our independent spirit for centuries in this country. They've won some battles...but they haven't won a war yet.
Grace is on sale right now for just $.99. I hope you'll grab a copy and go for a ride across Johnson County, WY.
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