Brothel, Speakeasy, Romance: A Room in Blake’s Folly by J Arlene Culiner

I am terribly excited to introduce J Arlene Culiner and her new book A Room in Blake’s Folly to the blog. She writes historical to contemporary romances for adults. Make sure you read her bio below, because J Arlene has led a varied and exciting life, and still does. With an adventurous past like this, you know her books will be full of exciting stories.

One of those stories is A Room in Blake’s Folly by J Arlene Culiner that I share with you today.

Story Background

If only the walls could speak…

In one hundred and fifty years, Blake’s Folly, a silver boomtown notorious for its brothels,
scarlet ladies, silver barons, speakeasies, and divorce ranches, has become a semi-ghost town.
Although the old Mizpah Saloon is still in business, its upper floor is sheathed in dust. But in a 
room at a long corridor’s end, an adventurer, a beautiful dance girl, and a rejected wife were once caught in a love triangle, and their secret has touched three generations.

Inspiration

I love writing about people who are different. Some are forced to adapt to new circumstances in order to survive; others are originals, folks who don’t really fit into mainstream society, who challenge the status quo. Some are opinionated and stubborn but they’re also entertaining, and they do make us question our own values.

I also enjoy writing about history, and even though my books are romances, that doesn’t mean they can’t be pertinent. In A Room in Blake’s Folly, we travel back to the Far West in the late 1800s and catch a glimpse of what boomtown life was really like.

Yes, there are prostitutes and dance hall ladies, but as Madame Lacey, a prostitute turned brothel owner said: “We’d all been thrown out into the world to do the best we could with little preparation—or preparation of the worst kind. What possibilities did we have? A few of us had received only the poorest education, others, none at all. Some had been brutalized by family members, by employers, or were abandoned by lovers, and most of us had young children to support.”

And then there were cowboys. The cowboy myth, first created in literature, was continued in film and television. Actor Gene Autry (best known as the “singing cowboy”) claimed cowboys were tall, lean, strong, silent men of action who followed the “Cowboy Code”: a cowboy never takes unfair advantage, never betrays a trust, never lies, is kind to children, the elderly, and animals, is free from prejudice, is always clean and helpful. But the Cowboy Code never existed.

In reality, the cowboy was a laborer on horseback whose job it was to herd and transport cattle from ranch to market. Some cowboys were European immigrants, others were Mexicans, American Natives, Civil War soldiers; one quarter of cowboys were freed ex-slaves. Despite dreams of freedom and riches, a cowboy’s life was hard, and most died young. Earning only enough for food, a place to sleep, and a small amount of spending money, wearing the same clothes for weeks, their broad Stetsons protected them from the sun and served as water bowls for themselves and their horses.

After grueling weeks on the road, cowboy behavior was never refined when they hit town: “Them cowboys the city gals get all romantic about? Those men rode for hours just to get here, and when they did, they drank and turned into hyenas. Just human debris, that’s what they were, and they wasn’t welcome no place. Respectable town folk appointed marshals and deputies to deal with the likes of them.”

Ready for a peek into the real Wild West? In A Room in Blake’s Folly, six linking stories take you to a silver mining town, introduce you to the people who lived there—not always, by choice: a mail order bride who discovered her husband was a primitive brute, a former prostitute who fell in love with a silver baron, a desperate war refugee who dreamed of stardom. And here, too, deep secrets are waiting to be revealed.

An Excerpt from J Arlene Culiner’s A Room in Blake’s Folly

“You trust Big Jim?” Resentment rippled down Westley Cranston’s spine, meshed with scorn. “A lousy cad who jilted you when you were carrying his child? Who knew your bigoted family would kill you?”

Seemingly unperturbed, Sookie Lacey dipped her forefinger into the oily pot of carmine on her dressing table, spread the rosy salve over her lips. Turned, met Westley’s eyes squarely. “Jim didn’t have a choice. He was on the lam. He had to keep moving.”

“Because he was wanted for a violent robbery! Why the hell are you making excuses for an unscrupulous criminal who forced himself on an impoverished family?”

“You weren’t out in this part of the world back then. You can’t even imagine that winter when cattle froze to death on the prairie. How could anyone, good or bad, have survived in the open?”

“And while hiding out with your family, he seduced you.”

“Seduced!” Her nostrils flared. “Being with Jim protected me from my vicious brother, my depraved father, I told you that. They both tried to have their way with me.”

It was an old argument, one they’d had many times. Why couldn’t Sookie see that Big Jim’s perfidy could have ruined her life—would have ruined her life if she’d been a weaker woman? A pregnant fifteen-year-old runaway when she arrived in Blake’s Folly, Sassy Sookie had gone to work as a prostitute in the Red Nag Saloon. It wasn’t the lowest sort of brothel, but it wasn’t a classy parlor house either.

Yet, clever, lighthearted, and a favorite with the men, she soon realized her own worth. Never succumbing to the temptations of alcohol or laudanum, she’d left the Red Nag, come to the Mizpah, and as a saloon girl, made such excellent money selling dance tickets, encouraging men to buy alcohol, and to gamble, she no longer needed to sell herself.

“So, four years after jilting you, Jim walks into the Mizpah, sees you’ve become successful, and decides to stake his claim. That makes him a decent man?”

“He’s changed. Jim has become a respectable businessman, and he wants to marry me. He’s building us a big fine house where we can live together with our little son.”

“Where? Where will this wonderful fine house be?”

“In Virginia City.”

“Have you ever been there? Seen what he’s building?”

“You know I haven’t. Jim’s been on the road for the last five months. He sends me letters from Denver, San Francisco, New Orleans, and Phoenix.”

How can she be so blind? Westley took a deep breath, forced himself to sound steady and reasonable, not like a man hopelessly in love with the woman he would soon lose. “And what about us? What about what we shared? The nights you spent in my arms?” Nights when she had given herself without reticence but with warmth, tenderness.

Sookie stood, shook out the short, ruffled skirt and colorful petticoats floating just below her shapely calves. Her golden beauty, caught in the lamp’s uneven flicker, made his heart ache. How desirable she was in the low-cut sequined bodice that barely hid the sweetness of her breasts.

“Westley, what you and I shared is our secret. A delicious secret that no one else can know about or even suspect, particularly since Jim has sent Doug Lazy here to protect me.”

“To spy on you, you mean.”

Sookie’s chin tilted defiantly. “Think what you’d like. Just don’t forget I’m marrying Jim in September.”

Pushing past him, she swept out of her boudoir and into the long dark corridor. The tapping of her tasseled kid boots on the stair held a note of finality.

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