This book came out four years ago, but I had not read it because I am not fond of Westerns (but maybe, now, I am). Oh, I wish I had read this book sooner – it’s now my next favorite book to her Bone Dance – and in a way I am glad I only found it now because it looks like the next in a series, and being the cautious writer that she is, Emma has yet to produce the next one, which, if all things were fair, would be called A Knowledgeable Man. Here are the reasons I love this book:
She introduces this book as The Matter of Tombstone. How cool is that?
Wyatt Earp is a sorcerer.
Emma traveled to Tombstone to get the historical details just right, and if she hadn’t, we probably wouldn’t have been delighted by China Town, nail guards, dance cards, and an entire cascade of other delicious and sometimes sordid details.
Jesse Fox can feel silver like blood in his veins.
Doc Holliday is kept alive by magic.
Mildred Benjamin misses romance and her dead husband, but not being a debutante.
All of the characters are doomed, not knowing what the hell is going on. I love that.
The inescapable feeling ‘This is the kind of book I’ve been waiting for to read,” and the inescapable feeling that, like Bone Dance, I am going to read this book again and again.
The lessons for writers: Don’t write to market, but do write the story that readers crave. Write the story that you, author, crave.
Visit Emma Bull.