Special Valentine’s Day Guest Chat with Jodi Thomas>>READ MORE

CONTEMPORARY WESTERN ROMANCE

Jodi Thomas

Rustler’s Moon

Ransom Canyon (Book 2)

HQN Books (January 26, 2016)

Mass market paperback, 978-0373788620, 368 pages, $7.99

A rustler’s moon, explains tall, good-looking, and heartbroken Wilkes Wagner of the Devil’s Fork Ranch, provides “enough light for rustlers to slip onto a ranch and steal cattle, but not so much that anyone on guard would see them clearly.”

And when Ransom Canyon newcomer and museum curator saucily inquires what Wilkes himself would do under such a moon, Wilkes’s answer surprises them both. Does either of them believe it when he says he might just steal her heart? After all, she’s hardly his type. And she’s obviously hiding a secret.

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Texas ReadsGlenn Dromgoole

>> archiveTexas author introduces children to bird watching

Huntsville birdwatcher Kermit Cummings has produced a book for young children about birds. He also has developed an interactive app, allowing children to hear the bird calls of the species featured in the book.

A Backyard Birding Adventure: What’s in Your Yard? (Brown Books, $16.95 hardcover), illustrated by Holly Weinstein, introduces children through rhyming text to ten common birds that may be found around their homes — such as the robin, blue jay, wren, woodpecker, and cardinal.

Cummings includes a note to parents on how to help their children take up birding or bird watching as an educational and entertaining activity. “The first step is to put up a bird feeder,” he suggests. “Another must is a birdbath.” And a good pair of binoculars.

Oil and ranching: Dennis McBeth of the Crews community has published Oil About Ranching (Ballinger Printing, $22.95 paperback), a collection of his columns printed in Livestock Weekly in San Angelo. The pieces are arranged pretty much in chronological order from April 2013 to August 2015, McBeth points out, chronicling the oil boom and bust over that period.

In the introduction, McBeth apologizes in advance “to any English teachers who might be drinking hot coffee and have a spasmodic reaction regarding the use/misuse of the English language. Some of which may be intentional.” He also says he has tried to “keep it clean,” noting a friend’s advice: “By leaving out the profanity from oilfield stories, it takes a third less ink and paper.”

In the Livestock Weekly column and in the book, McBeth’s goal has been to “help bridge the information gap between ranchers and the oil field in an informative and entertaining manner.” The book is available at Cactus Books in San Angelo and on line. Or contact the author at Dennis.McBeth@gmail.com.

Mineral Wells tales: Stephenville author James Pylant has written Texas Gothic: Fame, Crime & Crazy Water (Jacobus Books, $18.95 paperback), which he says is the “untold story of Mineral Wells.” The book, Pylant says, include “true tales of the town’s forgotten past: murder, white slavery, prostitution, and a headless corpse.” And, of course, the fourteen-story Baker Hotel, which is being renovated, and the Hexagon, a mansion designed like a honeycomb but torn down more than fifty years ago.

One of the central characters in the book is Corinne Griffith, a Mineral Wells belle who would become a famous star in silent movies and one of America’s richest women. Read more at jacobusbooks.com.

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Glenn Dromgoole is co-author, with Carlton Stowers, of 101 Essential Texas Books Contact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.

>> Check out his previous Texas Reads columns in Lone Star Lit

Lone Star Lit welcomes Kristine Hall to Lone Star Book Blog Tours; thanks to outgoing blog coordinator Pope

Lone Star Literary Life makes a change to its team lineup this month with the arrival ofKristine Hall as book tour coordinator for Lone Star Book Blog Tours. Hall, a professional reviewer for numerous publicity services, authors, and publishers, is a graduate of Texas A&M University and earned her master’s degree in library science from Sam Houston State University. She is an active member of the Texas Library Association and a proud member of the Grammar Police. Her book reviews can be found on her blog, Hall Ways.

We bid farewell, with great thanks for her service during our first year, to our inaugural blog tour coordinator, librarian Tabatha Pope of Spring. Pope remains on the team as a tour blogger.

If you blog about Texas books and authors and would like to apply to participate in Lone Star Book Blog Tours—for the joy of reading, and free advance copies of new books in your interest areas—contact Kristine Hall at  kristinethall@yahoo.com.

We’ll also be officially rolling out our new blog tour and publicity site next week. Take a sneak peek at www.LoneStarPublicity.com.

LAST DAY TO NOMINATE
Think your community’s a Top Texas
Bookish Destination? Tell us why

What’s it take for a community to be celebrated as a Top Texas Bookish Destination? Lone Star Literary Life is seeking nominations for its March 2016 list of best Texas travel bets for book lovers everywhere. >>READ MORE

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• The Poisoned Pencil

  Paperback, 9781929345106 (also available as an ebook), 230 pgs., $10.95

  May 5, 2015

  High school sophomore Shelby Palmer has been looking forward to her first boy-girl party, one of her best friend’s sweet sixteen, for a month. She’s got the new dress, the shoes, the makeup — and her “super-cute-walking-electric-shock” crush is going to be there. But when she gets home from school her mother tells her that she and Roger, Shelby’s stepfather, are going out and Shelby will have to babysit her baby brother, Josh. Again.

  Shelby takes Josh to the park, one of their favorite spots, trying to take her mind off of her troubles. Shelby is momentarily distracted by a commotion in the park and when she looks back for Josh, he has disappeared. The police don’t believe Shelby when she tells them about the white van she’s seen too many times in her neighborhood.
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