"It's impossible to discourage the real writers; they don't give a damn what you say." Sinclair Lewis

Saturday, December 13, 2014

New Novel by Bill Corbett/aka Will Edwinson

Greetings Blue Sage members and blog followers. I’d like to take a minute to tell you about my latest novel entitled, LouIsa---Iron Dove Of The Frontier, to be released by Wheatmark Publishing located in Tucson, Arizona. It will be available for purchase at www.amazon.com on December 15th.

I write fiction under the name Will Edwinson, and this is my third published novel. It is a story loosely based on the life of Louisa Houston-Earp, Sam Houston’s quarter Cherokee granddaughter. Houston lived for a time among the Cherokee Indians. First, as a boy from age fifteen to age nineteen, and again later, when he separated from his wife Eliza. During this later sojourn he married the powerfully beautiful Tiana Rogers, a Cherokee woman, though he was still technically and legally married to Eliza. From this marriage came a son, Samuel.

Samuel Houston married Elizabeth Waughtel with whom he had twelve children. It is believed that LouIsa (pronounced with a long i sound) Houston-Earp was one of those children.

Not much has been written about the real-life Louisa. This novel is not an authorized biography, nor is it intended to be. A great deal of literary license has been employed in the development of the story.

Louisa, is a mix of what historical information I was able to gather about her, and what I was able to conjure up from my own imagination. “It is left up to the reader to decide what is fiction based on history, and what is history based on fiction. In real life she was married to Morgan Earp, Wyatt Earp’s younger brother.

My characterization of Louisa is that of an interesting well rounded lady. When necessary, she can wrangle little dogies and cattle with the best of cowboys and fight as adeptly as the roughest of gutter rats; but also, when necessary, she can don an evening gown and be right at home with Vassar graduates.

She is a stalwart, but genteel woman of quiet strength, educated in an Eastern finishing school where she learned the ways of “Ladyship” and studied classical piano under the tutorship of masters becoming proficient in the works of Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, and others. She introduces this “high-brow” music into frontier saloons and actually wins the rowdies over into liking it.

Some of those rowdies learn the hard way, however, that ‘You don’t mess with LouIsa.’ She is a crack shot with her custom made .38 LouIsa Special revolver and has the temperament to use it when necessary as one rowdy learned when she shot him where no man wants to be shot. She is also a shrewd business woman. LouIsa has her heartbreaks to deal with as well, but she overcomes.

The book, will be available in print version and e-book versions for Kindle, Nook, and other digital reading devices. You can also go to Will’s website at www.willedwinson.com and read more about the book, and also read a few excerpts.

Corbett/aka Will Edwinson, currently lives it Tucson, Arizona