Darkling Spinster

Book excerpt: As a young woman, Reb lost her fiancé in the Civil War. After years of living a lonely life as a school teacher in Chicago, she accepts an invitation to stay with her well-to-do sister and brother-in-law in the boomtown of Tombstone. Life in Tombstone is not what she expects, as she is continually surprised by the luxuries to be had in the desert town. Her sister arranges dinners with a number of genteel suitors; however, it's an unlikely man who wins her heart. Reb's paramour shares an unexpected secret about his past and then disappears. She looks for him in the seedier parts of Tombstone and encounters well-known figures of the Old West, including Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday. Soon a mystery unfolds involving an artifact of American history. Reb investigates the matter and runs afoul of Tombstone's wealthiest citizen.