Along Came Mary: A Bad Girl Creek Novel [Paperback]

USA Todaycalled Jo-Ann Mapson's national bestsellerBad Girl Creek a valentine to oceans of good women who survive bad beginnings and worse men. Now the author, hailed as one of the most gifted writers of the contemporary urban West (Los Angeles Times), brings back the hard-luck women of her acclaimed previous novel -- and introduces another indelible character into their midst.
After finally wising up to her drunken rodeo crooner lover, Mary Madigan saddles up her twin border collies and takes her act on the road, leaving miles of heartache and highway behind. When she meets Rick, a charming and persistent journalist haunted by his own ghosts, she suddenly has a travel companion and a new lover (with an all-too-familiar set of tricks).
Their travels ultimately bring them to Bad Girl Creek, where the waters have already been troubled. Phoebe's pregnancy is life-threatening, Nance's break-up diet has turned dangerously successful, Beryl is still struggling to adjust to life after prison, and HIV-positive Ness is distancing herself from the healthy world -- if you can call it that.
But these are the Bad Girl Creek ladies: they are resilient. The ways they pull together, cheer each other on through good times and bad, and cope with every curve life throws at them make up the heart and soul of this powerful and big-hearted novel.Jo-Ann Mapsonis the author of eight novels. She teaches fiction in the MFA program at the University of Alaska, and lives with her husband and four dogs in Anchorage, Alaska, where she is at work on a new novel. Visit her at www.joannmapson.com.Chapter One: Hell, and the Route Out

Except for two boys hyped up about tonight's rodeo, the bleachers at Five Corners stood empty. Those kids in their dirty coveralls and straw cowboy hats -- maybe nine or ten years old, they were already talking in the hard way of their fathers, son-of-a-bitchin' this and goddamnin' that. I even saw one of th