The Mystery of Etta Place

Who was she? Where did she come from? What happened to Etta Place after Sundance and Butch died in a hail of bullets in South America? Well, that's the 1969 movie version--and then there's my version, now available again in ebook on a wide variety of platforms.
Here, told in first person, is my rwllinf of the story of Etta Place's life with the Sundance Kid, Butch Cassidy, and the Hole In the Wall Gang, told form her point of view and with a hint at a new look at the relationships between that infamous threesome and a question about who really died in that shootout in South America. 
She was born Martha Baird, but history will always remember her as Etta Place, the woman who rode with the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang. This is history transformed into fiction in a novel that captures all the drama, passion, and adventure of the life of one of the West’s most amazing women.
Publishers Weekly wrote “Alter is a meticulous researcher but never at the expense of a skillful first-person narrative.” And The Literary Times said, "Judy Alter is one of the finest writers of Western fiction! Her realistic portrayal of historic events touches the imagination and stirs the spirit."
Heady praise for an author with at best a mid-list career.
Here, just in case, are links to Sundance, Butch and Me:
Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Sundance-Historical-Western-Romance-ebook/dp/B007Q3LUGM/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1333393307&sr=1-2 

 Nook:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1005183916?ean=2940014178884&itm=1&usri=sundance%2c+butch+and+me

Thanks for putting up with me and my blatant self promotion. From now on, back to regular posting. Who knows? I might discuss politics--naw, probably not.

:Like seeing your chldren again

An author/friend once commented that having books out of print was like having children  you can't see. Well, I'm excited to announce that as of today I can see two of my OP "children" again. Libbie and Sundance, Butch and Me are now both available as ebooks. I've mentioned them before but in cases of blatant self promotion, I believe in repetition.
Libbie is the story of Elizabeth Bacon Custer's years with George Armstrong Custer, as I imagine them. Not all the fun and games her journals would suggest. Elmer Kelton wrote, "Libbie is probably the book Mrs. Custer would have written had she not been determined to protect her husband’s name.” a review in Romantic Times said, “A wondrous, intimate story of an unsung heroine of the West," and Affaire de Couer said, “Rings…authentically true….Brilliant and memorable….Kudos to Ms. Alter for a refreshingly unique story.” Here's a brief excerpt:

I knew that history would make a plaything of Autie, and when that happened, all my battles would be lost again. Autie rarely lost a battle—save that last big one—and his fights were always glorious, painted on a broad screen by the clamoring newsmen if not by himself. My battles were small and silent and private, but oh! they were important to me, and I had managed to hold the line. I would not see it all wiped away with the muckraking cry that Autie's overweening ambition had led him to disaster at Little Bighorn. I would make sure that the world saw the George Armstrong Custer I wanted seen. Only this private journal—to be burned upon my death—records my own wars.

Twelve years is not very long in a lifetime, yet it seemed my whole life was lived in those brief years of marriage. I had fought battles of my own, hard battles, to marry Autie, and once married, I thought myself the happiest and luckiest of women—married to the great boy-general, the hero of the Civil War. We would, I knew, grow old together, savoring the best of life, the last for which the first was made, so the poet wrote. I'm not sure when, exactly, that I knew that dream was not to be, that a love as intense as ours could not survive, that two people as willful as we could not be bound so tightly together. And yet, when all was said and done, I would not have traded those twelve years for anything on earth. Were they worth a lifetime? There is no answer, but even to think about it, I must begin earlier, back in Monroe.... I remember yet one snowy night when I was but sixteen years old.

 Libbie is available from Kindle at

http://www.amazon.com/Libbie-Historical-Western-Romance-ebook/dp/B007Q3EJ74/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1333417391&sr=1-3  and from Nook at

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1000340594?ean=2940014178730&itm=1&usri=judy+alter+libbie

I'm proud of these novels and the research that went into them. Hope you enjoy them. Tomorrow, more about Sundance, Butch and Me, the story of Etta Place's years with the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang. 

Life without a computer

My computer went crazy about four o'clock last Friday. The cursor took on a life of it's own, darting all over the screen and ignoring my mouse efforts, both remote and on the laptop. If I did manage to coax it into position, clicking on the close sign did absolutely nothing. I called a friend's computer guru who recommended a shop that seemed halfway to Weatherford to me. Took it in Saturday--and there, oh sob! was a weekend without a computer. I literally live at my computer when I'm home and not doing household chores; I read with the email on; if I eat alone I do so in front of the computer. I start my day with emails and Facebook. OK, I'm a junkie, but this was pretty tortuous.
I made do with the iPhone and the Nook, emailing and reading Facebook on both, and spending a lot of time reading mysteries. Finished Julie Hyzy's wonderful Affairs of Steak, the newest in the White House chef series, and started Lucy Burdette's debut novel, Appetite for Murder, about an aspiring food critic--and a murder--in Key West. Hoped the computer would be back Monday but no such luck.
Monday night, the Nook and the iPhone both ran out of battery at the same time; the Nook takes 15 or 20 minutes before it can power up again, and it had the book I'm reading on it. Five minutes later the TV in my office went out. I was stranded in an electronic wilderness!
Today, I got a great review by Terry Ambrose at http://www.examiner.com/crime-fiction-in-national/skeleton-a-dead-space-would-be-realtor-s-nightmare and I could't print it, etc., a friend emailed to be sure I was not sick (nice that people notice when I'm missing) and another, by phone, said, "No wonder you were so quiet all weekend." I got an email that I have a guest blog due in two days. And I had by today compiled a little list of things to clear up once I got the computer back on.
Hurray! this afternoon Jacob and I drove in one of those cold drizzles all the way out Camp Bowie past Cherry Lane. With my back-roads routes, it was a bit of a journey and a cold one because it's one of those days when the car fogs up and you have to defrost with the a/c. Besides, Jacob complains about the heater, says it smells bad.
There's always, for me, a bit of trepidation when I first re-hook my computer, but all is in order, except of course my GoogleSearch history is gone, there's no list of recently viewed files. Oops, I have to see if all my stored email addresses are gone--so far I've just been replying.
But I'm back in the electronic world and happy about it. Tomorrow, I'm staying home and talking nice to my computer all day.