I used to live in NYC. While I was there, I decided I wanted to write a short story for a weird west anthology. I asked myself, "What do you know about people in the wild west?" The only name that came to mind was Billy the Kid. Looking back now I laugh at the idea that I thought I knew ANYTHING about Billy. I read the Wikipedia page on him and clicked on the name, John Tunstall...and that began a rabbit hold dive that I'm still in today. It pulled me to visit Lincoln, NM, enough times that the saying, "Land of Entrapment," is real. I moved out here in 2017 and it's one of the most beautiful places I've lived in my life. But we can discuss my love of NM another time. You're here on this page to hear about Billy.
In May of 2020, the first book of the True Legends Series, from Falstaff Books, will hit the world for you all to read and I must warn you, I'm a FANTASY AUTHOR. I have that in caps for the people in the back. While I do use real history, and have consulted with historians, these books are WORKS OF FICTION. So if you are a Billy the Kid purist where it must be historical fact and only historical fact, my books will not be for you. However, if you love Billy and books/stories about him, and enjoy a kick ass adventure into the past...these books will take you on a journey you'll not soon forget.
These books take place in two time periods: 1878-1881 and 1949-1951. You get to ride along with Billy and the Regulators as they fight the Santa Fe Ring and get caught up in his life and those he loves and loses throughout his life. But remember...there's a FANTASY element to it all that surrounds and supports the history. Thus, while you get to be swept away in fantasy elements like witches and werewolves, you also get a history lesson on a war we were never taught about in school...about the first mafia mentality that took the west and how it catapulted a young man with a quick temper and itchy trigger fingers to become a legend that everyone today has heard of.
BUT...do you really know Billy? Maybe you do, maybe you don't...either way, you'll enjoy the hell out of these adventures and find yourself shouting aloud in joy, laughing at the humor, and crying with the emotion that was the life of Billy the Kid...even if it is told from a certain fantastical point of view.
If interested in reading an ARC for review purposes, please reach out to my editor, Melissa MacArthur at melissa@falstaffbooks.com.
I look forward to the world getting to ride along with Billy on the adventure I was lucky enough for him to show me.
-Tamsin L. Silver :)