The Roan Maverick

well written history based fiction - western drama and life in the old west. worth the reading and share with friends.

Wow! I am not an avid reader or a particular lover of westerns, but this story really reached me. It's so timely! But even beyond its timeliness is the opportunity it affords to be a fly on the wall in your great grandmother's pioneer kitchen, where life went on despite tragedies and set-backs, and where kids got to be kids even while they grew up in tough circumstances. The blurb on the back cover says "Ms Strahan's writing bears comparison with the best of frontier narrative, from Laura Ingalls Wilder to Willa Cather", and that's about the size of it--a lot of book in a small package! I can't wait to see where C R Strahan goes next.

The Roan Maverick was a long time in the making, and I deeply appreciate your enthusiastic welcome. My mentor in this work, the late frontier historian Thomas M. Tisdale, was descended from both sides of the cattle war--his paternal grandfather having been the settler whose murder precipitated the cattlemen's invasion of Johnson County in 1892, and his maternal grandfather having been one of the associated cattlemen. Although a work of fiction, it was Tom's pioneer ancestors who inspired The Roan Maverick, and it is less a story of the cattle war than the journey of a family through an acute political, economic and social crisis. The impact of this violent controversy known as the Johnson County Range War was devastating, not only to the Tisdale family but to many families in Wyoming whose current descendents still feel the pain of the conflict. My gracious thanks as well go to the residents of Johnson County, who warmly welcomed me and my story, and who felt--as I did in writing it--that it was time for the healing to begin.

This story breaks through all the stereotypes, debunks myths, and radiates authenticity. It's a western, yet it's literary, and a page-turner to boot. None of its characters was birthed by a cookie cutter, they're actually human in thought, word and deed. And contrary to that ubiquitous western theme of black hats & white hats, particularly where range wars are concerned, as the narrator puts it: "the heroes didn't all line up on one side and the villains the other." The most surprising element of this delightfully surprising debut is that, even though it is written by a woman, it does not limit its audience to women but invites everyone--men and women, old and young alike--into its pages. The skill with which the writer has woven historical fact and humanity into The Roan Maverick shows literary art in its highest form. Ms Strahan is a rarity--a writer who respects the intelligence of her readers, and one who knows that entertainment and education need not be mutually exclusive literary intentions. This is a true gem. It's polished, radiant and timely. The most hauntingly familiar aspect of this story is that it's not just about a range war that happened a hundred-some years ago. It's about now, when media is controlled and corporate greed overrides reason and ethics.

The Roan Maverick is a wonderfully written novel about the heart wrenching experience of a woman that lived through one of the west's more notorious events, the Johnson County Range War. This novel is unique in that it tells the story from a woman's view in a male dominated story, with many nuances that only women's voices have. Ms. Strahan has captured this voice with such skill that as you read the story you come to feel a strength of grace that can only come from the voice of a woman survivor of hardship. This is by no means a superficial western novel filled with white hats and black hats, but real and tangible with an honesty and straight forward approach that will be familiar to most old time westerner, with a humanity that anyone can appreciate.