Author Description

True Women is a stunning first novel based on the author's own roots. Brought up on her family's "great epic tales of war and adventure, love and murder, violence and redemption," Janice Woods Windle searched for the sources that could tell her the truth about the extraordinary women whose blood flowed through her veins. What she discovered was more dramatic still, and from those tales she has crafted a breathtaking work of historical fiction about two dynastic lines, the King and Woods families - the story of the true women of Seguin, and the giants whose destinies touched their lives. Here, Euphemia Texas Ashby King stands firm against the Mexican general Santa Anna and the feared Comanche, Tarantula, and leads the bitter battle for women's suffrage; Georgia Virginia Lawshe Woods defends her household by any means necessary from the sexual blackmail of a corrupt Yankee commandant; and Bettie Moss King fends off wolves, storms, and the Ku Klux Klan as she steers her loved ones through the turbulent birth of modern times. Deeply devoted to family, land, and the state of Texas, passionate and strong-willed, these are extraordinary characters who live, love, and die in a river of time reaching from the battle of the Alamo to World War II. Interweaving the heroic naturalism of Edna Ferber with the magical realism of Texas legend and the real-life history of Sam Houston, Santa Anna, and other historical figures, Janice Woods Windle has transmuted her ancestral provenance into a remarkable work of literary invention and popular appeal.