Blog Archives

2023 New Releases for SWW Authors #1

Chris Allen, Parris Afton Bonds, Melody Groves, and Patricia Walkow represent the diverse membership of SouthWest Writers (SWW) with books published in a variety of genres in 2023. Their new releases couldn’t fit in this year’s interview schedule, but look for 2024 interviews or updates for many of these authors.

A list of interviewed SWW authors with 2023 releases is included at the end of this post.


Alchemy’s Reach (August 2023) by Chris Allen and Patricia Walkow. Jennifer Murphy, deputy sheriff in a small town in New Mexico, has closed her heart to love. She throws herself into her job as well as running the ranch she and her brother, Ethan, inherited from their parents. Ethan’s wanderlust has taken him away in search of odd jobs. When he returns home, Jennifer entices him to stay for a while by telling him about Alchemy, a ghost town, once drowned by a reservoir, but now exposed by drought. Local barflies think there is treasure buried there. Others believe it is cursed. Intrigued, Ethan packs up his dog, Fi, and heads to the town. What happens at Alchemy will change Jen’s life forever, but will it open her heart to love?

You’ll find Chris Allen on Facebook and her SWW author page. Look for Patricia Walkow on PatriciaWalkow.com, Facebook, and her Amazon author page.


Answering The Call (Motina Books, May 2023) by Parris Afton Bonds. It’s never too late to have the adventure of a lifetime. With her 70th birthday looming, Lauren Hillard thinks there has to be an easier way. She has long felt her family has simply stowed her away like a precious heirloom. She’s had it – she is done. Lauren makes the snap decision to answer the call to adventure and move to affordable, exotic Mexico. Exotic, like the much younger David Escobar, attorney and former criminal. Soon she wonders if it’s wise to answer calls from a treacherous family member who wants to have her committed, a ruthless organ harvester, and her captivating but high-risk attorney.

Visit Parris on her website and her Amazon author page.


Lady of the Law: A Maud Overstreet Novel (Wolfpack Publishing, March 2023) by Melody Groves. Women in the 1870s have little control over their lives and the women of Dry Creek, California, look to Sheriff Maud Overstreet, a thirty-something spinster, as an example of women’s progress. Following a disastrous fire that leveled the town’s school, Maud appoints a woman as fire chief. Inspired, several women step forward to run their own businesses, much to the consternation of the male town councilors. While searching for the school arsonist, Maud takes on the role of campaign manager for two of her friends, both vying to be Mayor. Toss in more fires, a wild romance, a rowdy town dance, establishing a school for Chinese girls, and mysterious threatening notes, Sheriff Overstreet faces each challenge with determination. She is, after all, a Lady of the Law.

Showdown at Pinos Altos: The Colton Brothers Saga (Wolfpack Publishing, March 2023) by Melody Groves. Andy Colton, the youngest of the Colton brothers, leaves Mesilla to pursue gold mining in New Mexico’s Black Range. However, he finds little gold and is captured by a runaway slave while fleeing from a band of Apache. When news reaches Mesilla that the Apache have raided Santa Rita and Pinos Altos—areas where Andy was last known to be—his brothers Trace and James set out to search for him. After the slave sells Andy to the Apache, a fight ensues between the Coltons and the Apache in Pinos Altos in an explosive showdown not soon to be forgotten.

Look for Melody on her website MelodyGroves.net. You’ll find all her books on Amazon.


Holes in Our Hearts: An Anthology of New Mexican Military Related Stories and Poetry (May 2023), edited by Jim Tritten, Dan Wetmore, and Joseph Badal. Holes in Our Hearts provides snapshots of military life and how the military has affected lives. It is written from the perspective of New Mexico active-duty military members, veterans of the Army, Marines, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard, as well as their family members and caregivers. Some of the writing represents the first time many authors have revealed their innermost thoughts to anyone. Some of the stories are written by established authors with numerous publishing credentials. All are worth the time to learn why we continue to honor the military on behalf of a grateful nation. This collection of prose and poetry was gathered and created by SouthWest Writers and funded through a grant from the State of New Mexico Arts and the Military Program.

For a list of contributing authors, visit the Holes in Our Hearts book page on the SWW website. The anthology is available on Amazon.


SWW Author Interviews: 2023 Releases

Marty Eberhardt
Bones in the Back Forty

William Fisher
The Price of the Sky: A Tale of Bandits, Bootleggers, and Barnstormers

Patricia Gable
The Right Choice

Cornelia Gamlem
The Decisive Manager: Get Results, Build Morale, and Be the Boss Your People Deserve

Joyce Hertzoff
Train to Nowhere Somewhere: Book 1 of the More Than Just Survival Series

Brian House
Reich Stop

T.E. MacArthur
The Skin Thief

Nick Pappas
Crosses of Iron: The Tragic Story of Dawson, New Mexico, and its Twin Mining Disasters

Marcia Rosen
Murder at the Zoo

Lynne Sebastian
One Last Cowboy Song

JR Seeger
The Enigma of Treason

Suzanne Stauffer
Fried Chicken Castañeda

Jodi Lea Stewart
The Gold Rose

Patricia Walkow
Life Lessons from the Color Yellow

R. Janet Walraven
LIAM: The Boy Who Saw the World Upside Down

Donald Willerton
Death in the Tallgrass

Linda Wilson
Waddles the Duck and
Cradle in the Wild: A Book for Nature Lovers Everywhere




2021 New Releases for SWW Authors #3

Valerie Baeza, Parris Afton Bonds, BR Kingsolver, François-Marie Patorni, and Judy Willmore are members of SouthWest Writers (SWW) with 2021 releases that couldn’t fit into this year’s interview schedule. Look for interviews or updates for most of these authors in 2022.

A list of interviewed SWW authors with 2021 releases is included at the end of this post.


Valerie Baeza’s Story of My Life (October 2021) is a gripping epistolary novel that possesses unforgettable characters and impassioned storylines. When the worst happens, how do you move on? Garence Leitner had it all: a meaningful career traveling the world as a writer and photographer, the quintessential cottage in Bourton-on-the-Water, England, and the love of his life, Sabina. Now, with each passing day, the memory of her suffocates him. Even new romantic love delivers misery. Garence has sold the cottage, and can barely stand to look at what were once their prized possessions. But one alluring leftover item does claim his attention: a piece of luggage containing all the letters he and Sabina exchanged. As the letters transport Garence back through five years of emotional highs and lows, he will move into the shadows of despair—where love, hope, and friendship also pervade. Can these letters be his saving grace? If Garence cannot find a reason to live without Sabina within three days, he will take his life.

You’ll find Valerie on her website at ValerieBaezaAuthor.com and on Amazon.


The Betrayers (Lagan Press, May 2021) is the fourth book in The Texicans series by Parris Afton Bonds. Love and hate combine to endanger the Paladíns and all they hold dear. A violent scuffle between Drake Paladín and Roger Clarendon results in a none-too-subtle message to the Paladíns: politics is dirty business. From hereon, the Paladíns suffer failures and sabotage across their many business ventures. Eventually, even the sprawling South Texas ranch the family fought for and won the right to at the Battle of San Jacinto is put in peril. Rallying together to save their ancestral home, the Paladíns put niceties and tolerance behind them. This is war. But the battle to exterminate the Clarendons brings Preston Paladín to pre-war Nazi Germany—and the disarming charms of Fabienne Allaman. But on whose side is she really? And dare he risk the fate of his entire family for the love of a resistance fighter with nothing to lose?

For all of her books, visit Parris on her Amazon author page.


BR Kingsolver’s newest novel, The Gambler Grimoire (August 2021), is the first book in the urban fantasy mystery series Wicklow College of Arcane Arts. When Savanna Robinson arrived at Wicklow College to assume her new teaching position, she was curious about the abrupt departure of her predecessor. Then she discovered he had been murdered. No one knew who killed him or why, but everyone had their theories and suspects. Even the police—arcane and mundane—didn’t seem eager to investigate. But Savanna discovered a possible connection with the murder of a broker of rare arcane books. Were there really spells that could change your luck? When her own life is threatened, and the murders begin to pile up, she knows she can’t leave the mystery unsolved.

Visit the author’s Amazon author page.


The Politician’s Breviary: a Companion to Leaders and Influencers and Those They Seek to Control (French Legacy Press, June 2021), by François-Marie Patorni, is the first translation into English of the seventeenth-century Breviarium politicorum. This nonfiction book draws inspiration from the legacy of Cardinal Jules Mazarin, King Louis XIV’s mentor and prime minister. The original 1684 Latin edition was attributed only to an anonymous author, and subsequent editions over the following decades captivated readers as had Machiavelli’s The Prince a hundred and fifty years earlier. Yet, the Breviary’s principles and maxims that unveil how to achieve and retain power are even more relevant to guide today’s leaders and politicians.

The Politician’s Breviary is available on Amazon.


Judy Willmore’s debut novel,The Menagerie: Passion, Power, and Poison in the Court of the Sun King, was released by Artemesia Publishing in June 2021. Françoise-Athénaïs de Rochechouart de Mortemart had to have Louis, King of France, but his other mistresses stand in the way. Then she meets a  sorceress and Athénaïs gets her wish. But soon Louis hears tales of witchcraft and poison, a conspiracy spreading through his court—like the beasts in the Versailles menagerie, courtesans are clawing their way to his favor, and his bed. He orders Lieutenant General of Police Gabriel-Nicolas de la Reynie to investigate. Mysterious deaths mount while La Reynie presses on, hauling in witches, charlatans, and the nobility alike. Grimey fingers point to Athénaïs, the King’s mistress, with whispers of a black mass celebrated over her naked body. Then La Reynie discovers a plot to kill her.

You’ll find Judy on her website at JudyWillmoreAuthor.com and on Amazon.


Ramblings & Reflections: Winning Words of SouthWest Writers’ 2021 Contest

Ramblings & Reflections includes 54 winning entries from the SWW 2021 writing competition. Inside you’ll encounter aliens, foreign lands, post-apocalyptic environments, supernatural beings, paeans to nature, tributes to the lost, calls to action, wry humor, mysteries to ponder and histories to marvel at. The authors in this volume emote, exhort, evoke, inform, implore, explore, explain, entertain and exorcise. They have engaged in all the best pursuits, which—in the end—are really just one: to look within in order to see more fully without. We hope you, too, will be transported and transformed on the journeys they curate.

Ramblings & Reflections is available on Amazon. For a look at the anthology’s table of contents, go to this page. And visit the SWW Publications page for all of SWW’s releases.


SWW Author Interviews: 2021 Releases

Jeffrey Candelaria
TORO: The Naked Bull
Marty Eberhardt
Death in a Desert Garden
Melody Groves
When Outlaws Wore Badges
Holly Harrison
Rites & Wrongs
Robert Kidera
A LONG TIME TO DIE
BR Kingsolver
Soul Harvest
Marcia Meier
Face, A Memoir
Victoria Murata
The Acolyte
Barb Simmons
The War Within: A Wounded Warrior Romance
Gina Troisi
The Angle of Flickering Light


KLWagoner150_2KL Wagoner (writing as Cate Macabe) is the author of This New Mountain: a memoir of AJ Jackson, private investigator, repossessor, and grandmother. Kathy posts to a speculative fiction blog at klwagoner.com and writes about memoir at ThisNewMountain.com.




2020 New Releases for SWW Authors #2

Parris Afton Bonds, Loretta Hall, Esther Jantzen, Dennis Kastendiek, and Paula Paul are a few examples of the dedicated members of SouthWest Writers. Each of these authors represents a different genre, but all pushed through the craziness of 2020 to see their work published. The releases in this post couldn’t fit into this year’s interview schedule, but look for interviews or updates for most of these authors in 2021.

A list of previously interviewed SWW authors with 2020 releases is included at the end of this post.


In The Barons (Lagan Press, July 2020), the second entry in the Texicans saga, New York Times bestselling author Parris Afton Bonds tells a tale of intrigue and loyalty stretched to the breaking point. Politics, plunder, passion, profit, and power collide in a new and bountiful land through the eyes of the Paladín family, a captivating, richly-painted cast of characters playing out their lives against the backdrop of history. Their loves, their desires, their perils and rewards — all rendered in service to create a new state in America’s southwest — take on an urgency and realism unlike any before.

With the third volume in her Texicans saga, The Bravados (Lagan Press, November 2020), Parris Afton Bonds weaves a spellbinding tale of love, hate, revenge, and reconciliation set against the milieu of the turn of the twentieth century. From the streets of Dallas to the oil fields of Louisiana and the blood-soaked jungles of Cuba, the Paladíns find themselves caught in the great struggle between the traditions of the past and the technologies that will shape the future. Can bonds of blood withstand such tides of change? What about the feuds of ages long past? With true-to-life characters, high drama, and painstaking authenticity, The Bravados is a masterpiece of epic romance.

Visit Parris at ParrisAftonBonds.com and on her Amazon author page.


Higher, Faster, Longer: My Life in Aviation and My Quest for Spaceflight (Traitmarker Books, 2020), by Wally Funk and award-winning nonfiction author Loretta Hall, tells the story of a unique American space pioneer. Since she was a girl in a Superman cape jumping off the family barn and stargazing from the slopes of Taos Mountain, Wally Funk has kept going higher, faster, and longer every time she saw an opportunity. She soared through the aviation program in college, landing herself a flight instructor position after graduation. From there, she set a record in astronaut testing. The scuttling of the Mercury 13 program didn’t stop Wally, who used her dreams to fuel an adventure-studded life. Traveling the world, shattering glass ceilings, and always keeping one eye on the stars, Wally relentlessly, joyfully reached higher, flew faster, and traveled longer on her way to space.

You’ll find all of Loretta’s books on her Amazon author page.


In September 2020, Esther Jantzen published WALK: Jamie Bacon’s Secret Mission on the Camino de Santiago, her first fiction book for children and young adults. This is the story of Jamie Bacon who’s angry at his parents for making him walk 500 miles in Spain as part of their homeschooling plan. He’s especially disappointed that his dad can’t come along, which means he’ll be alone with his mom and sister. But when Jamie meets Father Diego and hears the backstory of the Camino de Santiago, he becomes intrigued. And when he naively agrees to the request by two pilgrims to secretly carry a heavily taped envelope, unopened, all the way to Santiago de Compostela, Jamie is stuck with keeping his word and finishing the very long walk.

Visit Esther on her Amazon author page.


Dennis Kastendiek’s first novel, A Seven Month Contract at Four Thousand Per (September 2020), tells the hilarious story of Johnny, a small-town Kansas high school graduate who feels guilty after a prank results in his sister breaking a leg just before her community playhouse debut. Fortunately (or not), Johnny learned all her lines while watching her rehearsals. And when a talent scout passing through town sees a girl he thinks is the most gifted actress to be found on the plains in ages, shit really hits the fan for Johnny/Johnnie. Broadway, here he/she comes! Reviewers call the story “brilliantly written, with compelling characters” and “plenty of bumps and thumps to enlighten and delight.”


Murder is Contagious (February 2020) is Paula Paul’s sixth installment in her Alexandra Gladstone Mystery series. Several children have died in a measles outbreak in the village of Newton-Upon-Sea. Equally as frightening is what begins to look like an epidemic of murder that may be related in some way to the measles contagion. Dr. Alexandra Gladstone finds herself deeply involved in both threats. Not only is her own life endangered, but the lives of members of her own household are at risk. Her attempts to stop both epidemics are hampered by the reappearance of an old lover who threatens to reveal secrets from Dr. Gladstone’s past.

Visit Paula at PaulaPaul.net and on her Amazon author page.


SWW Author Interviews: 2020 Releases

Connie Flores
Our Fascinating Life: The Totally Accidental Trip 1979
Sue Houser
Wilmettie
BR Kingsolver
Knights Magica
Dr. Barbara Koltuska-Haskin
How My Brain Works: A Guide to Understanding It Better and Keeping It Healthy
Manfred Leuthard
Broken Arrow: A Nuke Goes Missing
Shirley Raye Redmond
Courageous World Changers: 50 True Stories of Daring Women of God
J.R. Seeger
A Graveyard for Spies
Lynne Sturtevant
Hometown: Writing a Local History or Travel Guide and The Collaboration Kit
Patricia Walkow
New Mexico Remembers 9/11


KLWagoner150_2KL Wagoner (writing as Cate Macabe) is the author of This New Mountain: a memoir of AJ Jackson, private investigator, repossessor, and grandmother. Kathy posts to a speculative fiction blog at klwagoner.com and writes about memoir at ThisNewMountain.com.




Sign Up for Elerts  Stay Connected

SWW YouTube Videos

Search Posts

WhoFish

More information about SWW Programs can be found on WhoFish.