Painting a Love Story on the Wind
Paint the Wind is a love story – not of two people, but of three… an extraordinary woman and the two strong brothers who love her – one a charismatic high-roller, and the other, a young giant of an artist who longs to paint the fierce Apache. In my tale, there isn’t anything in this world the two McAllisters wouldn’t do for each other… except, perhaps, give up their claim to the woman called Fancy.
Message to My Readers
I hope the loves and adventures in Paint the Wind will sweep you, as it did me, through the rough and tumble days of the Old West. From the ruins of a great plantation, to a circus train and medicine show heading West, to the gold and silver fields of Colorado… from the cutthroat world of the New York 
stage and the arcane shadows of mysticism, to the last desperate days of Geronimo.
I hope it will show you what it would take for a woman in those times to climb from poverty to fame and fortune, in a universe that belongs to the ruthless and the male. And what she might have to do, or bargain, or sell of herself to ransom her dreams and the price of her deliverance.
My Paint the Wind Family
After five years of living with (and through!) my characters they seemed to me like my family… I laughed with their joys and cried with their sorrows.
My story needed them to be as varied as the polyglot thousands who journeyed West… the stalwart, honorable madam and the gunfighter who loves her… the brilliant dwarf with the secret past… the cunning Chinaman, who knows the cure for opium addiction and also knows that most people won’t pay the spiritual price it demands… the old prospector, who sacrifices all but integrity, for the Mother Lode… the thespian who yearns for one last great role to play… the mysterious gypsy, who mastered the forbidden arts and now, must win back her immortal soul. For five years, each one lived within me.
I hope that the many strange paths I traveled while researching will help to transport you to those roisterous streets of yesteryear… with the gunslingers and the madams, the magicians and the miners, the lovers and the friends, who are willing to risk everything – even death – for each other.
