THE SURVIVAL OF MARGARET THOMAS

1870s – Missouri: Margaret “Peggy” Thomas and her husband, James, lead a simple and peaceful life; she tends to the farm while he works as sheriff in the nearby town of Bleak Knob. Their evenings are spent doing the thing they love most—being together. One afternoon, after picking up fabric at the general store, Margaret watches helplessly as James is gunned down on the sidewalk in front of her. Days of mourning turn into weeks and then years, filled with little more than grief and alcohol. A telegram, announcing the upcoming trial in Arizona of one of the men responsible for James' death, rouses the widow from her misery. Neither inexperience nor the prospect of a long and difficult journey will stop Margaret from facing her husband's killer. Along the way, Margaret unexpectedly gains some new companions as she is joined by a free-spirited gypsy woman and a diminutive moonshiner. Together they will face the danger and violence of the Old West, but only Margaret will be able to answer the question that's plagued her from the beginning: Is she seeking justice or revenge?

Told from Margaret's dark point-of-view and in the epic tradition of True Grit comes The Survival of Margaret Thomas.

Del Howison is a journalist, writer, and a Bram Stoker Award-winning editor of the anthology series Dark Delicacies. Del has been nominated for over half a dozen awards including the Shirley Jackson Award and the Black Quill. His short western/horror story The Lost Herd, originally published in Hot Blood 11 in 2005, was turned into the premiere (and highest rated) episode, ""The Sacrifice,"" for the NBC series Fear Itself. He is the co-founder and owner of Dark Delicacies, a book and gift store located in Burbank, California, which won the El Posto Negro award from Italy for best specialty store and was inducted into the Rondo Hatton Hall of Fame.