True Women is a stunning first novel based on the author's own roots.
Brought up on her family's "great epic tales of war and adventure, love
and murder, violence and redemption, " Janice Woods Windle searched for
the sources that could tell her the truth about the extraordinary women
whose blood flowed through her veins. What she discovered was more
dramatic still, and from those tales she has crafted a breathtaking work
of historical fiction about two dynastic lines, the King and Woods
families - the story of the true women of Seguin, and the giants whose
destinies touched their lives. Here, Euphemia Texas Ashby King stands
firm against the Mexican general Santa Anna and the feared Comanche,
Tarantula, and leads the bitter battle for women's suffrage; Georgia
Virginia Lawshe Woods defends her household by any means necessary from
the sexual blackmail of a corrupt Yankee commandant; and Bettie Moss
King fends off wolves, storms, and the Ku Klux Klan as she steers her
loved ones through the turbulent birth of modern times. Deeply devoted
to family, land, and the state of Texas, passionate and strong-willed,
these are extraordinary characters who live, love, and die in a river of
time reaching from the battle of the Alamo to World War II. Interweaving
the heroic naturalism of Edna Ferber with the magical realism of Texas
legend and the real-life history of Sam Houston, Santa Anna, and other
historical figures, Janice Woods Windle has transmuted her ancestral
provenance into a remarkable work of literary invention and popular
appeal.
