Bøker av Joan Cullins Fountain

Johnny McLane and his young bride Cassie are best friends and soul mates in this post- Civil War story, set at a time of rapid western expansion and settlement of lands. Law and order must take hold in the fragile communities before statehood can come to Wyoming Territory. Johnny and Cassie's desire to live peacefully as a family on their small farm near the town of Sideling is disrupted by Johnny's commission as a newly hired U.S. Deputy Marshal. His task: to help bring stability to the region, by supporting justice, and apprehending notorious outlaw Judd Barrow. Navigating through the first year of marriage, dark events threaten their existence. A devastating personal loss, job-related attacks, injuries, and necessary long separations, will test the couple's strength of character and their endurance. When the stiff winds of adversity pass, there will be lasting consequences of not only temporal, but eternal significance. Joan Fountain is a Registered Nurse and lives with her husband, Walter. Their "homestead" in Maryland is also inhabited by horses, pigs, poultry, rabbits, cats, and a huge guardian stock dog named Bennie. For over twenty years, Joan volunteered as a Challenger leader for the Pioneer Girls program, an arm of the Christian Service Brigade, mentoring and teaching outdoor and life skills to teen girls. She serves as a teen mission leader at her church. Joan's hobbies include backpacking, canoeing, and everything out-of-doors. Since the age of four, she has been drawn to the West, especially her "adopted" states of Wyoming and Colorado. Years of detailed research and exploration in the western states have culminated in the exciting No Shadow of Turning trilogy. Joan is an associate member of the Western Writers of America.

Deputy Johnny McLane and Marshal Sam Brett find their troubles mounting. Although the small territorial town of Sideling, Wyoming, is rich in natural resources and has seen a slight increase in population, the two major businesses seem to be struggling. The ambush of Sideling-bound provision wagons, the incidence of mysterious arsons, and the reality of outlaw gang raids keep the townsfolk restless and the lawmen on edge. Furtively engaged by a madman in a nefarious contest of cat and mouse, the deputy suddenly finds 7-year-old Tad, the orphan he has taken under his wing, and the troubled school marm, Myra Davis, inexplicably drawn into the trap. When Johnny begins to court young Cassie Wilkerson, under the scrutiny of her cattleman father, he finds tribulation mounting. In the adversity surrounding them and with their faith and mutual trust severely tested, Cassie and Johnny must decide whether or not they will continue to forge the bond of affection between them. As difficulties close in on all fronts, Johnny wrestles to find inner strength. He must purpose to follow his own attributes and opinions or draw his arguments from a higher source. Under wise counsel, he perceives that the decisions he makes and the weapons of warfare he chooses could determine the fate of the settlement and impact the entire territory. Trade magazine In the troubled decade of 1870's Territorial Wyoming, Deputy Marshal Johnny McLane finds that many difficulties in the small settlement of Sideling defy solution. He strives to find balance in his professional and personal life as he courts the young woman he loves. As adversities increase, he begins to realize the weapons of warfare he chooses could determine the fate of the settlement and the territory.

Johnny McLane was born in South Hampton County, Virginia, on the eve of the turbulent decade before the American Civil War. Attempting to fulfill his deceased father''s dream, Johnny travels westward alone across the high plains coming upon the fledgling settlement of Sideling in the Wyoming territory.There, he is drawn into a formidable realm of spiritual, social, and political unrest. The stoic marshal reluctantly hires the unpretentious twenty year old as an apprentice peace officer, and Johnny immediately collides with the settlement''s deviant vagrant, intriguing young school marm, and a cattleman''s fiery daughter.Although the Emancipation Proclamation is now the law of the land granting freedom and equality to all men, Johnny recognizes that many, including himself, remain enslaved by the masters of lust, power, greed, prejudice, and fear. The traumas of war have left him weary and the mores of his upbringing seem insufficient to sustain him. Trapped in a tangled web of deceit and haunted by his past, there seems no way to escape. Subtly, inner promptings urge him to believe that he may have exchanged his father''s ultimate truth of freedom for a lie.