{"id":1519,"date":"2016-10-21T10:44:07","date_gmt":"2016-10-21T16:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidmjessup.com\/?p=1519"},"modified":"2016-10-21T10:44:07","modified_gmt":"2016-10-21T16:44:07","slug":"taos-news-reviews-marianos-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidmjessup.com\/?p=1519","title":{"rendered":"Taos News Reviews Mariano’s Choice"},"content":{"rendered":"

My new historical novel, Mariano’s Choice<\/em>, got a nice write up\u00a0in the Oct. 7 Taos News, reviewed\u00a0by Joan Livingston. \u00a0I quote from it below, and the original can be found here<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Mariano\u2019s Choice, by Joan Livingston<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ah, the choices we make. In Mariano Medina\u2019s case, h\"\"is was to \u201cRun! Get away!\u201d when he witnesses an attack on a girl, the daughter of his patr\u00f3n. But then he was only 15 and outnumbered by the ruthless men who hunt him down.<\/p>\n

Still his inability to stop the attack haunts Mariano into his adulthood.<\/p>\n

Author David M. Jessup sets his novel in the first half of the 1800s in the very Wild West. He uses real people for a few of his characters \u2014 such as Mariano, who rescued an Army brigade trying to cross Colorado during the winter of 1857 \u2014 and then has his way with them.<\/p>\n

The novel begins in Taos, where Mariano is a stable boy for a wealthy patr\u00f3n. During the 15 years following the aforementioned attack, Mariano wanders the frontier, working with trappers and traders. He is skilled at training horses and mules although not as natural as Tak\u00e1nsy, the Indian woman he hires to help him ready a herd for a group of Oregon travelers.<\/p>\n

\u201cCharlie Autobees had taught him well during the ten years he hauled whiskey for the man. Had taught him English, too. Given him a tent and blanket. Made him feel part of El Pueblo, that rough little settlement of Americano traders and their Mexican women hunkered on the north bank of the Arkansas, out of reach of Mexican hacienda owners and their sons.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mariano encounters good guys, like his buddy, Tim Goodale, and\u00a0the savvy French trader, Pap\u00edn, and bad guys, such as the son of his former patr\u00f3n.<\/p>\n

His courage is tested when he risks his life to save Tak\u00e1nsy from a band of Utes. Then there is his return to the Taos area, where he must finally face his past.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a while since I picked up historical fiction by choice. But Jessup makes his novel work handsomely with a good tempo and an authority that is convincing. He takes readers on a very satisfying ride into the past.<\/p>\n

Jessup, a rancher in Colorado, also wrote Mariano\u2019s Crossing. This novel is its prequel.<\/p>\n

\u201cMariano\u2019s Choice,\u201d at 249 pages, is available from Pronghorn Press (pronghornpress.org) for $19.95 in paperback.<\/p>\n

Note: \u00a0Mariano’s Choice may also be ordered from regular and online bookstores, and from my website, www.davidmjessup.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My new historical novel, Mariano’s Choice, got a nice write up\u00a0in the Oct. 7 Taos News, reviewed\u00a0by Joan Livingston. \u00a0I quote from it below, and the original can be found here: Mariano\u2019s Choice, by Joan Livingston Ah, the choices we make. In Mariano Medina\u2019s case, his was to \u201cRun! Get away!\u201d when he witnesses an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[76,58,86,77,87,71,85,88,89],"class_list":["post-1519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-american-west","tag-book-review","tag-books-in-taos-new-mexico","tag-historical-novel","tag-joan-livingston","tag-mariano-medina","tag-taos-news","tag-western-novel","tag-wild-west"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmjessup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmjessup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmjessup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmjessup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmjessup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1519"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmjessup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1523,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmjessup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1519\/revisions\/1523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmjessup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmjessup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmjessup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}