KAREN WILLS: Five Star Publishing / Cengage set June 21, 2017 as the release date for my historical novel, RIVER WITH NO BRIDGE. I’m so pleased that something I’ve worked on for so long, set in the area I love so much, and with characters I’ve grown to cherish is ready to be shared. I hope you all-important readers will find it to your liking. Booklist calls it, “A gripping, sometimes heartbreaking story of immigrant survival in the West.”
In 1882, Nora Flanagan leaves Boston for Butte, America, as the Irish called the Montana mining community. She realizes her dreams of marriage and motherhood for a time, but tragedy changes the course of her life. After scandal in Butte, followed by despair in Helena, she agrees to go north to settle near the North Fork of the Flathead River, the region that will one day be just west of Glacier National Park. She doesn’t go alone, but with mysterious, half-Chinese Jim Li. Their life becomes a challenging, romantic wilderness adventure. They meet mountain men like Beartracks Benton, colorful settlers, and Blackfeet natives. In time, Nora and Jim acquire a family.
But a man from the past, obsessed with revenge and addicted to laudanum, will jeopardize all they’ve achieved. An immigrant familiar with gains and losses, Nora will seek strength and resolve from her wilderness home. 
MARIE MARTIN: I uploaded my first novel, Maternal Harbor, on Amazon kindle in September 2012. Each year I added another and today they hit a mile stone that I am too excited about not to share. On May 30, 2017, readers have now downloaded my novels over a half a million times. If I was young and agile, I’d do a cartwheel.
Thank you, Readers,
LESLIE BUDEWITZ: Seeing that box of new books is always such a thrill! TREBLE AT THE JAM FEST, the 4th Food Lovers’ Village Mystery, officially releases June 10, 2017, from Midnight Ink, but it’s already available in bookstores around the country, and across the Flathead Valley. The series took a year off, but it’s back stronger than ever — more details and an excerpt here, on my website. When the body of an internationally renowned guitarist is found on the river banks outside town during the annual Jewel Bay Jazz Festival, Erin Murphy, manager of the Merc, must investigate to protect the community and keep the music playing.
And if you’re in the Flathead, please join me for a book launch party, with a short booktalk/reading, at 5:30, Sat, June 10, at the Bigfork Art & Cultural Center, in the village. I’ll also be at Fact & Fiction in Missoula at 7 pm, Tues, June 13th, when Christine Carbo and I interview each other about our new books, and at Montana Book & Toy in Helena at 2 pm on Sat, July 1. I’ll also be in Denver and Seattle, so if that’s home to you, please check out the events schedule on my website.
I’m also thrilled that the Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries are now available in audio, with DEATH AL DENTE and CRIME RIB already out, and BUTTER OFF DEAD and TREBLE AT THE JAM FEST in the works.
I hope your summer brings you good food, good friends, good books, and much joy.
Montana Women Writers 