A Self-Made Woman of the Civil War Era
“Set in Texas after the Civil War and based on real-life characters, Lottie Deno tells the story of an innocent young woman, Carlotta Tompkins, who becomes the notorious lady gambler, Lottie Deno. Carlotta drifts from town to town and saloon to saloon in search of her fugitive outlaw lover, Frank Thurmond (a relative of the author). Along the way, she meets up with Doc Holliday and gets herself kidnapped by desperados and kidnapped from the kidnappers by a band of Kiowa warriors. It’s a rip-snortin’ tale of love and adventure in the Old West, and its spunky, intrepid heroine will remind you of Mattie Ross in True Grit. So, who will play Carlotta in the movie?”
—Tom Epperson, author of Roberto to the Dark Tower Came and Make Believe “I loved this story. The descriptions of the land and places are amazing. I feel the journey while reading it. It is like poetry woven into the story.” —Cynthia Rose, historian and author of Lottie Deno: Gambling Queen of Hearts “Thurmond’s powerful novel inspires and excites in equal measure, telling the story of a young woman’s struggle to survive in the lawless post-Civil War South. Thurmond brings to life a brutal world populated by desperadoes like Doc Holliday, willing to stake everything on a throw of the dice; a country where death stalks the living around every corner.” —Simon Tolkien, author of No Man's Land and Series Consultant on the Amazon hit series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Excerpt:
“My tale begins in Kentucky, on a large plantation near the small Ohio River port town of Warsaw in Gallatin County. I was born in 1844 on the twenty-first of April. (That makes me a proud Taurus, and I have always lived up to it.) They called me Charlotte J. Tompkins at birth, though I went by Carlotta and have sported quite a few different sobriquets in the years since. My parents were relatively well-to-do and owned (though I am now terribly ashamed to admit it) a large number of enslaved people. One of these plays an important part in my story: Her name was Mary Poindexter, a young woman who was assigned my nanny at birth and who would later become my closest friend and confidant, not to mention my protector on our many adventures together, in a friendship that would endure long after she finally obtained her free papers.” |
Frank Thurmond holds graduate degrees in English from Southern Methodist University and Oxford University. His books include Before I Sleep: A Memoir of Travel and Reconciliation (2012, Et Alia Press), Ring of Five: A Novella and Four Stories (2015, Et Alia Press) and Remembrance and Other Poems (2022, Braddock Avenue Books). In addition to writing, he is a musician and an award-winning filmmaker. He teaches literature, composition, music, and screenwriting at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. In his spare time, Thurmond enjoys serenading his two rescue dogs with his Renaissance lute.
February 2024
Paperback • $17.95 • 978-1-62491-204-7
240 Pages @ 5.5” x 8.5” E-book • $9.99 • 978-1-62491-205-4 |