Brown-Eyed Girl (36 page)

Authors: Virginia Swift

BOOK: Brown-Eyed Girl

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This is a work of fiction. Laramie is a real place, and some of the places in and around Laramie are real, but the people are pure products of my own fevered imagination.

Many thanks:

To Maria Montoya, for an evening in a cabin in the high Rockies when I told this story, and who said, “Oh, you've gotta write it.” To Beth Bailey, Melissa Bokovoy, Hal Corbett, Henry Levkoff, Jeff Limerick, Valerie Matsumoto, Harriet Moss, Craig Pinto, and Peter Swift, who read the book and gave me all kinds of suggestions, which I should have taken.

To Kathy Jensen and Audie Blevins, who've offered me a home away from home for twenty years. And to more Wyoming friends: Katie Curtiss and Hal Corbett, Karen Marcotte and Jon Myers, Colin and Roxanne Keeney, Bev Seckinger, Janice Harris. All this is made up, of course, but it kind of rings true, don't you think?

To Tom Baumgartel, Catherine Kleiner, and Jon “Mad Dog” Myers for keeping the music alive.

To Richard White, for giving kindly hardheaded advice and the chances of a lifetime. To Elaine Koster, my agent, whose faith in this book and me amazes me still. To

Carolyn Marino, my editor, who is teaching me how to write. To my excellent colleagues in the History Department at the University of New Mexico and in the Western History Association, who keep me crazy after all these years.

To Sam and Annie Swift, the world's finest children. To the Swift, Scharff, and Levkoff families, who matter most of all.

To Peter “the Rocket” Swift, companion on all twenty thousand roads, and off-road for that matter, my love.

About the Author

Virginia Swift teaches history at the University of New Mexico. She also writes nonfiction under the name of Virginia Scharff. She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

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Praise for Virginia Swift and BROWN-EYED GIRL

“A dazzling, dangerously funny debut from Virginia Swift,
Brown-Eyed Girl
has a rich voice, a wonderful sense of the modern West, and tons of attitude. With this book, Virgina Swift threatens to do for Wyoming historians what Janet Evanovich has done for New Jersey bounty hunters.”
Stephen White, author of
Cold Case

“A sexy novel set in the wide-open town of Laramie, Wyoming. Bawdy and suspenseful with a wonderful literary mystery buried in the middle, this debut novel promises a solid career ahead for Ms. Swift.”
Margaret Maron

“A soaring debut from Swift, who combines a bittersweet romance, resumed after a twenty-year hiatus, with academic infighting, paramilitary paranoia, and a puzzle dating back to WWII.”
Kirkus Reviews

“As much a mainstream story of two gutsy Wyoming women as it is a mystery, Swift's first novel captivates . . . Swift develops her engaging tale gracefully, with a real feel for the atmosphere of its Wyoming setting.”
Publishers Weekly

“A welcome, distinctive new voice.”
Poisoned Pen

“Swift has written a story to capture some of the romantic-thriller market currently owned by Tami Hoag and Nora Roberts.
Brown-Eyed Girl
should appeal to fans of those authors and more.”
Rocky Mountain News

“Sally and the mysterious, marvelous Meg Dunwoodie are great characters.”
Toronto Globe and Mail

“A delightfully heterogeneous cast . . . This witty, warm, engrossing first novel is highly recommended.”
Library Journal

“Entertaining . . . Swift certainly provides plenty of color in terms of characters and setting.”
London Times

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

BROWN-EYED GIRL
. Copyright Â© 2000 by Virginia Scharff. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub Edition OCTOBER 2011 ISBN: 9780062133533

Print Edition ISBN: 0061030309

FIRST EDITION

10Â Â 9Â Â 8Â Â 7Â Â 6Â Â 5Â Â 4Â Â 3Â Â 2Â Â 1

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