Flag of West Virginia

Janet Dailey was the first American to write romances for Harlequin. She eventually wrote a total of 57 novels for them, including one set in every state of the Union – “The Americana Series.” E-Reads is happy to bring them to you, one state at a time. Where do you hail from? How about…

West Virginia: Wild and Wonderful

Could Glenna bargain with a man like Jett? For her father’s sake, Glenna Rynolds felt she had to try. The government was going to shut down her father’s coal mine any way-the only chance was for a merger with Jett Coulson’s huge conglomerate, Coulson Mining. She found Jett Coulson devastatingly attractive, but a tough businessman. And he wasn’t interested in absorbing Reynold’s losses. “It would have been easy if you’d suggested a merger with you,’ he told Glenna. In spite of his cool, emotionless arrogance, somehow Glenna was tempted by the proposition!

If you want to collect and read all of them, visit Janet Dailey’s author page and find them all (plus 14 more including bestsellers like Heiress).

In 1873, Alferd Packer (that seems to be the way he spelled his name) led 21 men from Utah to the gold fields of Colorado. Three months later he came back to civilization alone, guarding the terrible secret of what he had done there. To this day, no one knows what really happened on that fateful expedition. But there is strong evidence that when the party got hopelessly lost, ran out of provisions, and became snowbound in the Rocky Mountains, one of starving men satisfied his appetite by roasting some of his companions. Packer claims he killed the miscreant, and there was no one to contradict him when he returned. But he himself was subsequently tried for cannibalism, and the judge is alleged to have burst out, “Packer, you depraved Republican son of a bitch! There were only five Democrats in Hinsdale County and you ate them all!”

Western novelist and journalist Ken Hodgson has reconstructed this story in Lone Survivor and unless you too have a stomach for roasted Democrats, you may find yourself off your feed for a few days after reading Hodgson’s gripping account.