At 14 years old, Jesus ‘Chuy’ Perez Contreras
Verazzi Messi is too small and frail to work the land on the family farm near
the Rio Bravo in Mexico. The local padre’s
tutoring reveals Jesus’s unending curiosity
and fertile mind. Noted Las Cruces, New Mexico attorney, and politician Colonel
Albert Jennings Fountain, agrees to take his nephew under his wing. Jesus ‘reads law’ with his uncle and
shares adventures and adversity with the Fountain family and other historic
Mesilla and Tularosa Valley citizens. His coming-of-age story will take you
into the wild southwest, a brewing range war, a territory struggling toward
statehood, courtroom dramas, and the adventures and adversities of a boy’s quest for manhood.
*A fictional memoir by Jesus about the ten years leading to the notorious and unsolved Fountain murders.
When the Doves Coo (A Prequel to The Two Valleys Saga): https://books2read.com/u/mKpegv
The Mesilla (The Two Valleys Saga, Book 1): https://books2read.com/u/3yKn8J
The San Augustin (The Two Valleys Saga, Book 2): https://books2read.com/u/menJWR
Mary Armstrong
Mary lives in the heart of one of the ‘Two Valleys’ in Las Cruces, New Mexico, with her husband Norman ‘Skip’ Bailey, Jr. and their Cavachon child-dog, Java. In 2017 she wrote the one-act play, “It is Blood,” which was selected for a performance by the Las Cruces Community Theatre. Whereas the Two Valleys series is a prequel to the notorious and unsolved murders of Albert J. Fountain and his eight-year-old son, “It is Blood” is a sequel to those events.
After winning an award for her debut historical fiction novel “The Mesilla,” Mary has decided to focus on that genre — at least for the foreseeable future. Her writing is fast-moving, thought-provoking, and with just enough wordsmithing to satisfy your artistic hankerings. While her writing has literary merit, she strives to capture the moment — the time and the place — and help you live in that moment.
Before releasing her debut novel, Mary dabbled in creative writing, including a weekly column in the Las Cruces Sun News. Since retiring from a diverse career in various planning and design fields, she has devoted herself more fully to her writing, being a good spouse, serving her dog Java, and slipping away to the golf course when left unchained to the desk.
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Thank you so much for hosting today's tour stop for The Mesilla.
ReplyDeleteAll the best,
Mary Anne
The Coffee Pot Book Club
My pleasure.
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