Joy That Long Endures - #TeaserTuesday and First Chapter / First Paragraph / Tuesday Intros

     If you like historical fiction set in the Old West, you'll enjoy Joy That Long Endures as much as I did. Author Alethea Williams tells the tale of men and women working to succeed in Wyoming Territory in the days after completion of the Great Transcontinental Railroad. Although hordes of men and women headed west in search of gold, the people who were most successful were those who provided services to the fortune seekers. This book tells the story of Devin Cavanaugh, a former ironworker who now hauls freight; Dulcinetta Jackson, who owns a saloon; and other characters with ambition and drive.
     This book stands alone; however, it is the second volume in Williams's Irish Blessings series. I blogged about the first book (Walls for the Wind) HERE.
I have also enjoyed and blogged about Alethea Williams's other books: 
Náápiikoan Winter
Willow Vale

Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of Joy That Long Endures in exchange for an honest review. The author also included a dictionary with the book, defining the colorful slang of the times.

Beginning: 
     HAAWWWW, HAAAWWWW!
     Well might the mule sound amused, Devin Cavanaugh thought, as he pondered the present state of his life while hoisting another bag atop the pile in the wagon. It took only a glance for the man to resolve anew that this Wyoming Territory was a rough, raw place. The harsh landscape proved hospitable to equally raw weather: the wind had finally let up after an earlier blow so ferocious that loose dirt spiraled in a brown cloud two miles high. Now, with a sudden streak of lightning and vicious crack of thunder, rain cascaded in blinding sheets, turning the normally mindless job of loading the wagons into a wet, miserable business indeed. And to top off the whole soggy mess, there was Caleb Wilson and his fit of temper, accompanied by a veritable geyser of raw language. Wilson's tantrum was coarse enough that Devin almost expected clouds of steam to emanate from the man's mouth along with the steady flow of heated cussing aimed at one of the lead mules.
     "Ya bacon-faced baggage, I'll strip the hide from yer jingle-brained gawdamned bones! Hold still, ya stinkin' Tom turd jilt! By gawd, I'll whip the skin clean off from yer scrawny fundament once I get ya fully hitched, ya useless scraggy whorepipe!"

Teaser (from Page 96):
     Devin said, "I was a big city guttersnipe. My parents died within a few years of arriving in this country - at least I know my mam is dead and I think my da is. He just never came home one night, and Mam died a year or so after that."

Genre: Historical Fiction
Book Length: 170 Pages (trade paperback) plus a reader's group guide.
Amazon Link: Joy That Long Endures
Author Blog: Alethea Williams - Western Historicals

Synopsis:
Joy that Long Endures is the second of the Irish Blessings series of historical novels that began in Cheyenne with Walls for the Wind. The series tells the stories of Irish immigrants set along the tracks of the new transcontinental railroad in Wyoming Territory. A former iron man for the Union Pacific, Devin Cavanaugh labors day after day to transport loads from the little railroad town of Bryan 100 miles over dirt trails to South Pass City. He wants only one seemingly unattainable thing: to be his own man. Dulcinetta Jackson, taught from childhood how to profit from the dreams of desperate men, wants the one thing denied her by her life of fabulous wealth: the place bestowed on those accepted in respectable society. What happens when very different people with different ambitions team up to gamble on achieving their dreams? 

Teaser Tuesday is hosted by The PurpleBooker. Post two sentences from somewhere in a book you're reading. No spoilers, please! List the author and book title too.
Link up HERE

First Chapter/First Paragraph/Tuesday Intros is hosted by I'd Rather Be At The Beach. To participate, share the first paragraph (or a few) from a book you're reading or thinking about reading soon.

Link at I'd Rather Be At The Beach

Twitter: @SandyNachlinger

Facebook: sandy.nachlinger