By Erin Wood
Little Rock author Frank Thurmond says his latest novel “is inspired by fascinating historical events and real-life characters (including the author’s own 19th century namesake), and tells the story of an alluring young woman who gambles her way through the Texas frontier in search of her outlaw lover.”
Lottie Deno: A Novel of the Civil War and the American Southwest is a first-person account of a girl becoming a woman in pre-Civil War Kentucky. The novel follows the protagonist through a romantic involvement in Detroit and into adulthood as she becomes the notorious gambler, Lottie Deno, in postwar New Orleans, San Antonio, and points Southwest. Her business acumen and fearlessness bring opportunities. Her love life takes several turns, and her character matures in often colorful, surprising ways.
This is the fourth book by writer, musician, award-winning filmmaker, and University of Arkansas at Little Rock literature and screenwriting professor Frank Thurmond, whose other books include Before I Sleep: A Memoir of Travel and Reconciliation (2012, Et Alia Press), Ring of Five: A Novella and Four Stories (2015, Et Alia Press), and Remembrance and Other Poems (2022, Braddock Avenue Books).
Purchase or order your signed copies from WordsWorth Books in Little Rock or order wherever books are sold.
Hot Springs native, Erin Wood is a writer, editor, and publisher in Little Rock. She owns and runs etaliapress.com. Wood is author of “Women Make Arkansas: Conversations With 50 Creatives” (April 2019) and editor of and a contributor to “Scars: An Anthology” (2015).
