Book Description

Larry McMurtry meets Richard Paul Evans in this inspiring Wild West tale about a desperate single mother, a violent snowstorm, and a tall, dark stranger. . . . Distinguished writer Jack Curtis winningly combines suspense and a timeless holiday message with the best Western literary tradition in this dramatic novel.

From Publishers Weekly

A veteran writer of TV westerns and 18 previous novels, Curtis (The Kloochman) sets this appealing blend of the nativity story and Dickens's A Christmas Carol in a Nevada landscape about 100 years ago. Brave and feisty widow Rose Cameron ("her face honest as a looking glass") leaves her failing ranch in a howling blizzard to find medical attention for her sick son, Tommy. Ever since her husband died eight months ago, Rose has been trying to keep the Circle C ranch solvent, but a severe drought has depressed the region, drying up everyone's land, money and the milk of human kindness. Rather than offer their assistance, the predatory ranchers whose acreage abuts the Circle C have done their best to cheat Rose and hasten foreclosure. When Rose and Tommy arrive in the nearby town of Calico, they are refused shelter by the hardhearted banker, hotel owner and pastor; only the denizens of shacktown offer food, a room and hospitality. Then banker Max Gotch convinces desperate Rose to sign away her rights to the ranch. All seems lostAbut wait! Joel Reese, a cowhand and drifter with "honest eyes and courteous virility" will be Rose's savior. Curtis stacks his cards blatantly and herds stereotypes into the narrative: the prostitute with a heart of gold; the Scrooge-like banker who has a vision and miraculously changes his ways; the baby born on Christmas Eve. But his sentimental story gains color from homespun dialogue rendered with a Western twang, and its earnest message of compassion for the less fortunate gives his predictable plot a satisfying holiday moral. $35,000 ad/promo. Agent, Mildred Marmur. (Nov.) FYI: Rodale is issuing Christmas in Calico as its first book of fiction.

From Library Journal

From Library Journal

A pregnant widow and her sick son. A banker threatening to foreclose on the widow's loan. Unfriendly neighbors who want her land. A tall, dark stranger on a black stallion. Novelist and Emmy-nominated scriptwriter (for Gunsmoke) Curtis combines all the elements of a classic Western into a Christmas story.

Book Dimension

Height (mm) 184 　　　　　　　　　　　Width (mm) 134