QUEEN OF THE BLACK RANGE: Lottie Deno and the Boomtown of Kingston (The Lottie Deno Chronicles)

QUEEN OF THE BLACK RANGE: Lottie Deno and the Boomtown of KingstonBook One of The Lottie Deno Chroniclesby Kenny SalleeIn the waning days of the silver boom, when fortunes were written as quickly as they were lost, the frontier town of Kingston, New Mexico, offered opportunity to any who dared—and ruin to those who misjudged the cost.Lottie Deno has lived long enough in the gaming rooms of the West to understand the difference between luck and control. Known in whispers and stories across Texas and New Mexico, she carries both reputation and intelligence into every room she enters. At her side is Frank Thurmond, a man determined to turn risk into something more permanent—something that might outlast the cards, the claims, and the shifting promises of boomtown life.But Kingston is no ordinary stop along the frontier. Beneath its rising churches, boardinghouses, and business offices lies a harder truth: respectability here is often only appetite with better manners. As speculation deepens and lines on paper begin to diverge from the land itself, Lottie and Frank find themselves drawn into a quiet struggle over truth, reputation, and the price of being useful in a place determined to call itself civilized.When the cost becomes clear, they must decide what they are willing to trade for standing—and whether a town built on shifting ground can ever offer a place to stand at all.Rich in historical detail and grounded in the real lives of Lottie Deno and Frank Thurmond, A Place to Stand is a vivid work of frontier storytelling that explores ambition, identity, and the uneasy passage from risk to respectability in the American West.For Readers Who Enjoy:Character-driven historical fictionStories of the Old West beyond gunfights and outlawsStrong, intelligent female protagonistsThemes of reinvention, reputation, and moral complexityAuthors like Larry McMurtry, Paulette Jiles, and Cormac McCarthy (in tone, not imitation) Read more