Saturday Sampler & Giveaway - Mystic Series by Rosanne Bittner

Genre: Historical Western Romance
Publisher: Forge Books 

From Award-Winning Author Rosanne Bittner

Many years ago I read an article in a flyer I receive from the Wind River Indian Reservation  that was about a stone medicine wheel on the top of Medicine Mountain in the Big Horn Mountains of northern Wyoming.  The article fascinated me because no one is certain which Native Americans built this medicine wheel, or even when.  At the top of a nearby mountain peak is a stone arrow pointing to the medicine wheel, which I found even more fascinating, because at the time someone created these places out of stones, there were no airplanes.  There would be no way to see the arrow pointing to the medicine wheel except from above.  Native Americans consider the medicine wheel sacred, believing only spirits from above would see it.  There is a central cairn, with spokes coming out to join in a circle of stones so that the entire site looks just like a wagon wheel. 

My husband and I took a trip to see the medicine wheel, and the first time we went there you had to drive up a very dangerous, one-lane (side of the mountain-no guard rail) road to get o the site.  The second time we went to see it, the national park service had made a better road, but it goes only part way up and then you have to walk the rest of the way.  The wheel itself is now fenced off because of (I call them jerks) people stealing stones from the site.  When you go there, you get a chilling feeling of spirituality, as though you have just walked into an ancient mysterious past.  And the view on top of Medicine Mountain is SPECTACULAR!! 

The moment I read about this stone medicine wheel, I knew I wanted to write a book that would be based around this sacred site.  That book is MYSTIC DREAMERS, and on the original hard cover book jacket there is a picture of the actual stone medicine wheel.  After that first book I knew I needed to continue the story of Stalking Wolf and Buffalo Dreamer, so I wrote book #2 MYSTIC VISIONS and then #3 MYSTIC WARRIORS, which follows the Sioux nation into the Custer battle. All three books are filled with real Native American history, customs and beliefs, and a good share of mystic spirituality, the third book ending with a very spiritual and mysterious event that (I hope) leaves readers wondering if this really could happen.  I personally believe it could.

I am happy to announce that all three of these books, although some are still available in print through Amazon.com, are now available as e-books for all types of e-readers.  Enjoy!!

Mystic Dreamers
by Rosanne Bittner
Pre-Order: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iBook | Kobo Books
Genre: Historical Western Romance
Release Date: May 12, 2015
Length: 379 Pages

For over a decade, Rosanne Bittner has enchanted her readers with tales of adventure and romance in the times before the White Man settled the West. Now, in the tradition of Kathleen O'Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear, the bestselling author of Song of the Wolf and the Savage Destiny Indian series turns her hand to historical fiction with a wonderful new story of Native America sure to capture you and carry you on an adventure of love and hate, good and evil, life and death.

In 1833, Star Dancer, a Sichangu (Brulé Sioux), is promised in marriage to Stalking Wolf, an Oglala warrior whom she has never met. What begins as a loveless union develops into a moving story of a man and a woman led by powers beyond their control. Dreams, visions, and mystic experiences fill this provocative love story that launches a saga about the Lakota and their first meeting with the White Man.

Praise for Mystic Dreamers:

"Rosanne Bittner is one of the best writers of Native American romance stories and Mystic Dreamers is one of her best efforts to date." --Janelle Taylor, bestselling author of Lakota Dawn

"I'm a great admirer of Rosanne Bittner. Mystic Dreamers is beautifully written." --Loren D. Estleman, author of Thunder City

"Filled with suspense and high emotion." --Booklist

 Mystic Visions
by Rosanne Bittner
Pre-Order: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iBook | Kobo Books
Genre: Historical Western Romance
Release Date: May 12, 2015
Length: 352 Pages

In Mystic Dreamers, best-selling author Rosanne Bittner began a compelling saga with the meeting of Buffalo Dreamer, a holy woman, and Rising Eagle, a warrior whose powers were unmatched, for he had been blessed by the Feathered One. Now, in a new story sure to enthrall both new readers and devoted fans, Bittner follows Buffalo Dreamer, Rising Eagle, and their children through the great Indian wars and the settling of the West, where, in addition to the risks and rewards of daily life, they and their Lakota tribe must face the influx of white settlers and soldiers into their lands and into their lives. In Mustic Visions, we experience Buffalo Dreamer's increasingly powerful visions of the bluecoats and a coming war. We learn the fate of Little Big Boy and Never Sleeps, and of Never Sleeps's mother, Fall Leaf Woman. And we meet the one who is destined to lead the Lakota People in their greatest trial ever, Crazy Horse!

Praise for Mystic Visions:

From Publishers Weekly Picking up where she left readers in Mystic Dreamers, the initial volume in this series, Bittner explores the efforts of holy woman Buffalo Dreamer and her warrior husband, Rising Eagle, to fend off encroaching white settlers in the Lakota tribe's Black Hills. The narrative begins in 1836 and spans more than a decade. The heart of the book is the evolving relationship between the Lakota couple as well as the fate of their children, two of whom succumb in a smallpox epidemic introduced by the settlers. Rising Eagle survives smallpox, vowing to avenge his children's deaths. Also central to the story is an Oglala woman who now lives among whites, named Florence. She once loved Rising Eagle, but married an abusive white man, became an alcoholic and gave her son, Little Wolf, to Rising Eagle to raise as his own. When Lakota warriors attack white settlers traveling across buffalo country, Rising Eagle rapes a white woman, Mary Higgins, brings her back as a slave and also captures the woman's 10-year-old blond daughter, whom he renames Yellow Bonnet. Eventually traded back to the white settlers, Mary leaves Yellow Bonnet behind, as well as a newborn son she bears to Rising Eagle, whom Florence, now married to a kind preacher, raises. Bittner's descriptions of Lakota life are impeccably researched, with impressive scenes of visions and ceremonies. But her Lakota characters are all highly idealized, to the point where Bittner justifies Rising Eagle's brutal rape and kidnapping as a culturally viable tactic of war, further portraying the rape victim as weak, hypocritical and self-absorbed. Most of the settlers are treated as one-dimensional perpetrators, while the Lakota are given full range of emotion and spiritual depth. The result is an unbalanced tale stumbling when describing interaction between white and Lakota characters, but bringing a variety of intriguing Native American characters to life. (May)

Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Mystic Warriors
by Rosanne Bittner
Pre-Order: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iBook | Kobo Books
Genre: Historical Western Romance
Release Date: May 12, 2015
Length: 367 Pages

The white buffalo is a sacred and holy creature to the Lakota. Buffalo Dreamer, a holy woman, and her husband, Rising Eagle, have not only been blessed to see the white buffalo, they have eaten of its heart and have been told by the sacred beast that as long as the Lakota have the white buffalo hide, all will be well.

But all is not well. White hunters have stolen the sacred white robe and great misfortune has befallen the Lakota. Settlers continue to invade Lakota territory, backed by vicious cavalry forces that massacre women and children. The Lakota are starving and their anger is growing.
Led by Rising Eagle, a great force of Lakota and other tribes wage war upon the white man. Together they battle to regain the land stolen from them, to protect the precious buffalo the white man wantonly destroys, and to search for the sacred white robe.

Praise for Rosanne Bittner:

Rosanne Bittner retains her title as a premier Indian romance writer. . . . Poignant and startling. (Romantic Times on Mystic Visions)

Bittner's descriptions of Lakota life are impeccably researched, with impressive scenes of visions and ceremonies. . . . bringing a variety of intriguing Native American characters to life. (Publishers Weekly on Mystic Visions)

Beautifully written and structured. . . . [Mystic Dreamers] is the West of blood, tears, and transcendent dreams. (Loren D. Estleman, author of The Master Executioner)

Rosanne Bittner's stories are powerful because she creates memorable characters who enlighten readers as they rekindle the magical spark that belonged to the first people to love this land. (Romantic Times on Mystic Dreamers)

Filled with suspense and high emotion, quests and visions, this compelling love story is sure to please Bittner's fans and to win over new converts, especially as sequels are planned. (Booklist on Mystic Dreamers)

 About Rosanne Bittner

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I’ve been writing for over thirty years and to date have had more than 60 novels published, all about the American West of the 1800’s and Native Americans. I write romance, but not the typical bodice-ripping adventures. My stories are deep love stories, often family sagas told as a series. It is the hero and heroine’s love that holds them together through the trials and tribulations of settling America’s western frontiers. I absolutely love the Rockies, the Tetons, the Sierras, and the wide-open plains, prairies and desert land west of the Mississippi. In my books, I strive to tell the truth about the settling of the West and how it affected our American Indians, as well as the gritty depth of what our brave pioneers suffered in their search for free land and a better life.

 I am a member of the Nebraska and Oklahoma Historical Societies, my local southwest Michigan historical society, Women Writing the West, Mid-Michigan Romance Writers of America, the national RWA, National Rifle Association and a local charity group called the Coloma Lioness Club. I help run a family business and love doing things with my three young grandsons. If you visit my Website you’ll see all my titles listed as well as a page that lists all my many writing awards; or you can visit me on Facebook. At either site you will learn news of new books to come as well as reprints of many of my past titles soon to be published in trade paperback and as e-books!

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Meet Rosanne Bittner

Welcome Mid-Michigan RWA chaptermate, Rosanne Bittner as she writes about one of her favorite topics.

COWBOYS AND  … WELL, JUST COWBOYS!

Watched “Cowboys vs. Aliens” not long ago, and I am upset  with myself for not coming up with this idea for a book of my own – a modern-day twist to the theme and time period I love writing about – cowboys and the American West of the 1800’s.

No matter how you look at it, cowboys have always been popular.  You can barely count the number of western movies that have been produced over the last 50 years, the biggest share of them in the 1950’s and 60’s.  Lately, remakes of famous old standards like TRUE GRIT and 3:10 TO YUMA, have done well.  Then there are the famous “big screen” favorites like DANCES WITH WOLVES and HOW THE WEST WAS WON – and of course there are the unforgettable Clint Eastwood “shooters.”  My favorites are THE GUNS OF JOSIE WALES, PALE RIDER and TWO MULES FOR SISTER SARAH.  Then there is the name known world wide for his western films – John Wayne.  Actually, my favorite John Wayne movie is THE SHOOTIST – his very last film.  It’s so touching to know that was the last movie he made before he died from cancer, when in the movie he was an old gunfighter – also dying from cancer.  In the movie he went out of this life in the way only an old gunfighter should go – he “went down shooting.”  I, of course, cried my eyes out.

TV got into the act during the popularity of the mini-series with LONESOME DOVE and CENTENNIAL.  And of course few people are unfamiliar with the numerous TV half-hour and hour-long westerns like HAVE GUN/WILL TRAVEL and GUNSMOKE, the most famous of them all.  I sure hated to read about the passing of James Arness, but he will live on forever in the form of Marshal Matt Dillon.

As far as books, few authors helped keep  the genre alive like Will Henry and Louis L’Amour did.  Dee Brown did a fabulous job of enlightening readers to the truth about the gradual demise of the American Indian way of life in his book BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE.

There is something about the American western frontier that fascinates, something about those pioneers that makes us proud and makes us want to keep the “right to bear arms.”  We are even fascinated and in a strange way “proud” of our infamous outlaws, like Jesse James and Butch Cassidy.  Even more fascinating is that there was a very fine line back then between outlaw and lawman.  There were those who couldn’t say which Wyatt Earp and his brothers were … good?  Or bad?  How many books have you read, or movies have you watched, in which the “bad guy” was really good at heart?

Ah, yes, the American cowboy … restless, wild, roving, hard-drinking, ready for a fist fight, quick with a gun, tough, brave, rough looking yet handsome – even those who weren’t all that good looking were handsome in their own way when they wore those great hats and smoked that cheroot and stood their ground.  I think the western hero has remained popular because we all identify with some part of their personality … perhaps we all daydream that we could be that rugged, that brave, that quick with a gun, that much in charge of our lives and ultimately that “free” to be whoever we want to be … that much “in control” of our own destinies and “unchained” from rules and responsibilities.

I truly believe there is a little bit of “cowboy” in all of us … and so I will keep writing books about men like that and the equally brave and tough women it took to keep up with them … or tame them … whichever they were brave enough to try.  I love the American West, the American cowboy, and the American dreams they represented.  It was an era when there were still frontiers to conquer, still places where man had never stepped, still gold and silver and oil to be found, still free land as long as you were willing to homestead that land, still endless horizons with no skyscrapers or smokestacks to mar the landscape.  It’s the “cowboy” in Americans that makes them dare to try new ventures, dare to leave the familiar and take a new job or start their own business or move to a completely new area of the country.  There is a little bit of “cowboy” in our armed forces, in that devil-may-care attitude of our veterans who fought world wars, in those who dared travel into space, in a boxer, a football player, a race car driver, even a reckless investor who risks it all on a hunch.  It’s the American spirit, and a whole lot of that spirit can be identified as the “cowboy” in us.

If you have a dream, if there is something you want to try but have put it off, if you want to stand up for yourself but are afraid to, if you have a good idea but haven’t put it out there into the real world, you need to “cowboy up!”  Think like a cowboy, and you might be surprised where it can take you!  Cowboys have always been a favorite of mine, and they are still a reader favorite.  I’ll be writing plenty more western romances to satisfy those readers! 

Blurb for Paradise Valley:

Twenty-year-old Maggie Tucker's life is forever altered when outlaws murder her husband and attack Maggie, leaving her alone and lost in the wilds of 1800's Wyoming.  A strong woman who refuses to bend to shame or fear, Maggie buries her husband and vows to find the men who stole nearly all her belongings and tried to destroy her spirit.  Sage Lightfoot, the owner of a ranch called Paradise Valley, is hunting for three men who murdered his best ranch hand.  When he comes across a young woman collapsed beside an open grave, he stays to help her.  From that moment on a life-changing journey begins for Maggie and Sage, two people from different worlds who are drawn together in the common cause of justice.  Their search brings them together in unexpected ways; but a secret Maggie carries, and a woman from Sage's past, could destroy the love they find as they overcome incredible danger and life-threatening adventure along Wyoming's famed Outlaw Trail.

Paradise Valley is available at Amazon: http://amzn.com/1402280971 

 

Bio:  

Coloma [Michigan] author ROSANNE BITTNER has penned 57 published novels since 1983, stories about America's 1800's Old West and Native Americans.  She has won numerous writing awards and is published in Russia, Taiwan, Norway, Germany, Italy and France, where she is extremely popular.  Rosanne is a member of Women Writing the West, Western Writers of America, the Nebraska, Oklahoma and North Berrien (Michigan) Historical Societies, Romance Writers of America, and a Board member of the Coloma Lioness Club, a local charitable organization.

Rosanne and her husband of 48 years, Larry, have two grown sons and three grandsons.  They live in Southwest Michigan but travel the West extensively for research for Rosanne’s books.  You can learn much more about Rosanne through her web site at www.rosannebittner.com and her blog at www.rosannebittner.blogspot.com.  Be sure to visit Rosanne on Facebook and Twitter also!

River of Love by Rosanne Bittner

About River of Love {Book 3 ~ Savage Destiny Series}

Zeke Monroe will do anything to protect his Abbie and make sure she is happy, which is why he opts to settle into ranching and build his Abbie-girl a home of her own where they can begin raising a family on the plains of Colorado along the Arkansas River.  But the encroachment of white settlers and its affect on Zeke’s Cheyenne brothers begins to threaten his and his family’s safety, and the paradise he and Abbie find is short-lived.  Still, nothing can kill the devotion these two share toward each other, and it’s love that holds them together through heartbreaking adversity outside their private world.

Excerpt

“Come back to bed, Zeke,” Abbie told him softly.  “You know how I hate storms.  Come and hold me.”

The rain started pelting the roof then, and he came back beside her.  Both were naked, for that was the way they always slept.  … She pulled the buffalo robe over them, snuggling close to him, finding perfect shelter from the storm that frightened her.  She was afraid of nothing when Zeke was beside her.  He was like a rock, indestructible, strong, hard, never afraid.  She lifted her face to his.  Then his lips covered hers and she had no defense against the way he had of enticing her, as if his manliness and his touch were not enough. …
  
River of Love is available on Amazon (Book is exclusive to Amazon)

About Rosanne Bittner

I've been writing for nearly thirty years and to date have had 57 novels published, all about the American West of the 1800's and Native Americans. I write romance, but not the typical bodice-ripping adventures. My stories are deep love stories, often family sagas told as a series. It is the hero and heroine's love that holds them together through the trials and tribulations of settling America's western frontiers. I absolutely love the Rockies, the Tetons, the Sierras, and the wide-open plains, prairies and desert land west of the Mississippi. In my books, I strive to tell the truth about the settling of the West and how it affected our American Indians, as well as the gritty depth of what our brave pioneers suffered in their search for free land and a better life.

I am a member of the Nebraska and Oklahoma Historical Societies, my local southwest Michigan historical society, Women Writing the West, Mid-Michigan Romance Writers of America (treasurer) and the national RWA, and a local charity group called the Coloma Lioness Club. I help run a family business and love doing things with my three young grandsons. If you visit my web site atwww.rosannebittner.com, where all my titles are listed as well as a page that lists all my many writing awards; or you can visit me on Facebook. At either site you will learn news of new books to come as well as reprints of many of my past titles soon to be published in trade paperback and as e-books! I also have an author site at Amazon.com.

 Rosanne's Website | Blog | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads