Bøger af Lori Beasley Bradley

Mattie Wallace is rejected by her family and her community when she refuses to marry one brother because she loved the other. She is labeled a trollop and run out of town when she runs away with the brother she loves. He backs out after one night together on the road and returns Mattie to her parents, who turn her out. While on the road with her meager possessions and little money, she meets Roxana North, a woman in the Trade. Mattie is impressed with Roxie's confidence, independence, and her lovely wardrobe. She is also impressed with the fact that Roxie is making her way in the world without having her life dictated by a man. She has her own money, she can travel when and where she pleases without the accompaniment of a husband, father or brother. She is an independent woman of means. Mattie joins Roxie on her way to a new and profitable life in the West where women are few and men will pay for the company of those who are. They make their way to Abilene Kansas, a cow town where cowboys spend their money on whiskey and women. Mattie learns the ways of the women in the Trade and the hazards of the west where she becomes The Ruby Queen.

Raquel Clairvoux is forced to take a hard look at the origins of her family and her distant aunt the Legendary Swamp Witch Angelique Clairvoux, a mulatto girl born in the swamps of southern Louisiana and raised by her grandmother in the ways of Voodoo that she learned on the island of Martinique. She sees the history of the region and culture of the original Creole people of Louisiana. When slave catchers came into St Martinsville to collect undocumented people of color Angelique was attacked and mortally wounded flees into the swamp with her life savings she calls on the Spirits to guard her and her savings. Raquel learns about the men who over the next century and a half try to find Angelique's treasure and how they trigger the curse that finally brings them down. Raquel is taken through the history and evolution of a unique culture and historic area of the country and must decide where she and her family fit into it. While this is a story of pure fiction the author did exhaustive research of the area covering the years between 1712 and the present. The town of St Martinsville is an actual town in St Martin Parish, Louisiana and the Bayou Tesche is located there. St Martinsville was a town open to free people of color during the time of slavery and is considered to be the Creole capital of the United States. This book is a work of fiction that mixes historic fact and culture to transport the reader through decades of drama in an evolving southern Louisiana.

Roxie Edwards travels to Prescott, Arizona, to console her best friend Mattie Kirby after the redhead looses her baby and her husband, Joshua, leaves her. After Joshua sells their house and threatens their jobs with the mining company the woman realize they will have to return to the Trade to survive. Roxie has always dreamed of owning her own Palace, like the one Madam Ophelia owned in St. Louis. With a nearby military post, miners, ranchers, and politicians in the Territorial capitol, what better place than Prescott? The women open The Victoriana, an elite brothel where no expense is spared to entertain their clients. Like their mentor, Madam Ophelia, the women throw picnics and parties for the less fortunate in town. Some on the rowdy Whiskey Row in Prescott are not happy with The Victoriana, however. Threats are made in this final installment of The Soiled Dove Sagas.

Linda Martin, a young woman in 1870 is forced to turn her life upside down when her father arranges a marriage for her with a man almost three times her age. When Linda discovers a stipulation in the contract, she does the unthinkable to get out of the arrangement. Her actions throw her into a world she never could have imagined for herself. Linda Martin, who wanted to be a teacher, becomes Tansy Granger, a whore.