If the holidays have been as busy for you as they have been for me, maybe what you need is a cozy chair, a cup of tea, and a good book. If you can find the first two close by, I have a suggestion for the last. THIS TIME FOREVER isn't a new book, but it's one of my best--won the RITA Award in 1993--and Bell Bridge Books has just brought it out again, this time in trade paperback, e-book, and audio formats
This the story of a down-on-his-luck cowboy who is sent to prison for a murder he didn’t commit and an ER nurse who’s on the jury that convicts him. The idea came from a story a good friend told me of her experience on a jury. It was a murder trial, and she was quite young, and the accused was an American Indian. She felt that the evidence was circumstantial, and she held out as the only “not guilty” vote, but eventually she caved. She was the only one, so maybe she was missing something, maybe she was naive, maybe, maybe. But it haunted her. The man served two years before the real murderer turned up. So what if…
What if the juror crossed paths with the prisoner again? What she found out she needed something from him? A crime and a courtroom setup has the emotions and the conflict built in, but bring in a tense relationship—bigtime approach-avoidance—and you have the makings of an unusual romance.
Set in Bismarck, Mandan and Fort Yates, North Dakota, this is a story in which setting is almost a character. I was living there when I wrote it—had been for many years—but research into the courts and the penitentiary was extensive. I’ll have to tell you about my prison visits sometime. There were editors who felt that the idea couldn’t work, that Cleve and Susan would spend too much of the book apart. They were wrong. When the two aren’t in each other’s face, they’re in each other’s head.
The Prologue begins with an owl’s call, and I hear one outside in my woods right now. Cleve doesn’t like that sound much, but I do. I’ve always been a night owl. Best time to hunt for stories.
THIS TIME FOREVER is now available at Amazon.com http://tinyurl.com/axo6rhv and Barnes & Noble http://tinyurl.com/b95kq39. I hope you'll check it out. You can read the Prologue at kathleeneagle.com.
