Roan Maverick (Paperback) | Released: 15 Nov 2006

Narrated by 107-year-old Josie Watson Stewart, The Roan Maverick tells of an ongoing quest for justice after the range wars of the late 19th century devastate Josie's family and way of life. She had come to Wyoming as a young bride in 1887, eager for the opportunities the frontier offered, but quickly found herself embroiled in a political controversy. The worst winter on record had toppled the great Beef Bonanza, and the struggling cattle companies were losing their unchallenged dominance of the open range as their former employees--expert rangemen--were filing homestead claims and going into business for themselves. Through their power in government, the cattlemen wage a political war on these small competitors, igniting a range rebellion that claims the lives of many. Stewart recalls these events with straightforward honesty as well as a desire for the justice that forever eludes her.
About the Author: Artist & Writer C R Strahan has studied Wyoming history for more than three decades and was research assistant to the late frontier historian Thomas M. Tisdale, whose ancestors fought on both sides of Wyoming's Cattle War and are the subject of The Roan Maverick. Strahan has lived in the American West from New Mexico to the Pacific Northwest, with a quarter century in Colorado. She writes of conflict and controversy on the canvas of the western landscape, painting stories of family where money meets nature, cultures collide, and personal values are called into question. Her first novel The Roan Maverick, based on the history of Wyoming's Cattle War, resulted from her tenure as research assistant to the foremost authority on the subject and has received uncommon praise from the descendants of both sides of that historical insurrection. Her second novel, Sleeping With Eagles, was written from the context of her years of living in Colorado's Eagle Valley and chronicles the modern life of the ranching Delaney family, who in the 1970s find themselves entering dilemma as Vail begins to boom and tourism threatens to overturn the agricultural economy they have spent five generations building. In novel three, Lucid Dreaming, Strahan explores the history of a contemporary Montana ranching family's genetic bloodline as well as their cosmic bloodline, and the mysterious connection between past-life encounters and ancestry. Watercolor draws Past into Present and Spirit into Flesh in a fast-paced thriller of transformation in its simplest and most complex forms. In her novel Tango's Mirror a world renowned actor faces the dilemma fame has dealt him: The secret of his extraordinary art was his ability to observe human interaction anonymously, thereby gaining insight into the emotions on display in ordinary life-it was his ability to become a fly-on-the-wall that made him famous, and fame has destroyed his ability to become a fly-on-the-wall. C R Strahan has eight years of higher education in Humanities, with emphasis in English & Literature, Fine Art, History, and Business Administration. A student of Core Shamanism, she is descended from Cowboys & Indians; Ranchers & Sodbusters; Builders & Artists-and independent women ahead of their time. She currently resides in the Montana.