Available Again -- The Healer's Road by James Reasoner and Livia J. Washburn

For more than thirty years, bestselling authors James Reasoner and Livia J. Washburn have chronicled the story of America in their award-winning historical novels. THE HEALER'S ROAD is one of their greatest sagas, the sweeping story of a family dedicated to the practice of medicine and caught up in the violence and heartbreak of America's bloodiest war.

Thomas Black rose from poverty, superstition, and tragedy to become a respected physician. His son John is reluctant to follow in those footsteps but is forced to do so by the madness of war. And Thomas's daughter Sara is the most devoted of all to healing the sick and injured, despite living in a world that opposes her every ambition.

From Boston to Washington D.C. to the battlefields of the Civil War, THE HEALER'S ROAD is a tale of triumph and loss, of courage and despair, of life and death and love and hate vividly portrayed by a pair of master storytellers. Long out of print, THE HEALER'S ROAD is now available again in this newly revised e-book edition.

Excerpt:

On the left-hand wall were more tall wooden cases, these with solid doors. They contained medical instruments and surgical equipment: stethoscopes, thermometers, lancets, scalpels, boxes of sutures and ligatures, a carbolic acid atomizer, sponges, bandages, splints, syringes, tourniquets...the list was almost endless. Once a physician's equipment had consisted primarily of leeches; now in these advanced days of 1866 it seemed there was a tool or gadget for practically every purpose relating to medicine.

But the most important tools of all were the ones that had always been there, the man thought as he leaned back in his chair. The observant eyes, the keen brain, the caring heart...those were the things that really made someone a doctor.

After a moment the man leaned forward and dipped the pen in the inkwell again, then began to write.
Thomas Jefferson once said that the patient sometimes gets well in spite of the medicine. I might add, in spite of the physician, as well. However, there is no doubt in my mind that many individuals are drawing breath today who would not have been, save for the efforts of a doctor. Therefore, the practice of medicine is now, as it has always been, a noble and necessary one.

The man laid his pen aside and looked down at what he had written. After a moment he grunted and crumpled the paper, tossed it aside. The words sounded like an introductory lecture in the medical school he had attended many years before, not a heartfelt missive to someone he cared about very much. He took a clean sheet from a stack on the desk and began again, leaving off the formal address this time. He simply dated it February 12, 1866, wrote the salutation, and began:

Though I have not often said it, I love you very much and am quite proud of you. But never more proud of you than I am today. I applaud the course you have chosen and wish you all the best of fortune. You will doubtless need it, because the road you have chosen can be a difficult one. I know this because I have followed it myself. Once I was not a physician. In fact, I would have happily shot the first so-called doctor I ever met....

Bio: 

Lifelong Texans, James Reasoner and Livia J. Washburn have been husband and wife, and professional writers for more than thirty years. In that time, they have authored several hundred novels and short stories in numerous genres.

James is best known for his Westerns, historical novels, and war novels, he is also the author of two mystery novels that have achieved cult classic status, TEXAS WIND and DUST DEVILS. Writing under his own name and various pseudonyms, his novels have garnered praise from Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and the Los Angeles Times, as well as appearing on the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists. He recently won the Peacemaker award for his novel Redemption, Kansas. His website is www.jamesreasoner.com.

Livia J. Washburn has been writing professionally for over 30 years. Washburn received the Private Eye Writers of America award and the American Mystery award for the first Lucas Hallam mystery, WILD NIGHT. Her story “Panhandle Freight” a Hallam story, in The Traditional West anthology, was nominated for a Peacemaker award and her story “Charlie’s Pie” in the Wishing For a Cowboy anthology, won the Peacemaker. Her website is www.liviajwashburn.com. They live in the small Texas town they grew up in.

Links
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Prairie Rose Publications: New Release For Mother’s Day From Painted Pony Books

Prairie Rose Publications: New Release For Mother’s Day From Painted Pony Boo...: Livia J. Washburn Reasoner First I’ll tell you about the book, and then I’d like to share a little of its history. MOCKINGBIRD AND BIG EARL...

Out of the Ashes -- A Thanksgiving Treat -- The Phantom Ranger and the Skateboard Gang

The only unpublished novel that was on my usb memory stick snug in my purse when the house burned down in '08 was a middle reader novel my husband and I wrote called THE PHANTOM RANGER AND THE SKATEBOARD GANG. Recently Cheryl Pierson and I started a new publishing company, Prairie Rose Publications, blending our talents. This is a publishing company strictly for women's western fiction. We quickly discovered that there was a need for more, so we also formed Painted Pony Books for the younger readers. THE PHANTOM RANGER AND THE SKATEBOARD GANG is just the first novel to be published under the Painted Pony Books imprint.

THE PHANTOM RANGER AND THE SKATEBOARD GANG By James and Livia Reasoner

Codi Jackson and her father have been forced to move again. Codi’s getting used to being the “new girl” in her fifth grade class—but that doesn’t mean she has to like it. Can’t life just be normal? With her mother out of the picture and her father working odd shifts as a police officer, friends are important—as long as they’re not the wrong kind.

When Codi and a classmate, Keith Wright, are assigned to work on a history project, Codi has to make some hard decisions about her popularity in her new school.

But everything changes when Codi picks up an old Texas Rangers badge that belonged to one of her ancestors and he appears right before her eyes! Her great-great-great-grandfather says he’s come to help her, but how? And how is she going to explain the ghost of her long-ago Gramps to her history project partner and her father?

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What Did You Say?

Earlier my daughter said she was going to cut her nails on the porch.  Now my hearing isn't awful, but it's certainly not what it used to be.  I heard that she was going to go cut her nails with a fork.  I honestly sat there pondering how in the world she was going to do that, when I realized she'd gone out on the porch.  Then did the mental smack of the head.


I'm presently working on one of our older westerns.  I scanned it last week and I'm formatting and editing it for the Kindle. So my brain is in western mode.


Hearing her wrong got me to thinking. I know . . . not always a good thing.  But, I can't help but wonder how many of the battles, gunfights, brawls, etc. from history, were caused by a good ol' misunderstanding.  Someone just hearing something a little wrong.  Of course this lead to me thinking about a new character to come to Wind River, a town we wrote a 6 book series about.  This summer might be a good time to revisit Wind River, if we can just find the time.

Growing Up Watching Westerns

I’m sure some of you have wondered how I got into western writing.  I grew up watching Gunsmoke, Paladin, Bonanza, etc.  My dad loved westerns.  Top this with the fact I enjoy reading about history.  I didn’t mind having to read the history textbooks in school, in fact I may have been the only kid that read the whole books.  Now that math textbook was a different matter.

My first toe into western writing came with writing Hallam.  The first Lucas Hallam story which was published as a mystery, but it had western touches.  Lucas was a riding extra/PI in the first stories which were set during the 1920’s in Hollywood.  That story is available as an ebook on Amazon and Barnes and Noble along with 3 other stories I had saved on a usb drive I carried with me the day our house burned down.  This past week I have been collecting our missing stories.  The ones published in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and various anthologies.  I’m hoping I can scan them and make them available by this fall.  There are many Hallam stories and he is my favorite ol’ cowboy, but my favorite town would have to be Wind River.  James and I worked on this series together.  We had all six books plotted before the first book had even sold.  The publisher insisted on one name for the author on the paperbacks, so we decided to use James’.  When we republished them as ebooks, we used both of our names.  We were told that they wouldn’t sell with two names.  This time, the publisher was wrong.  They are selling very nicely with both our names.  While Wind River seems like a just a western, we planned a long running mystery to be solved in book six.  If you’ve read the books, you know how much fun we had writing them.  If you’ve only read a book or two, we wrote it where you would never know you missed anything.  But if you read all 6, you'll see what I mean.  Lately I’ve been trying to decide if we should revisit Wind River.  I wonder if there are six more books in the town . . .  The first book is still only 99 cents for the Kindle and Nook.