Fall in love with this Romance series.

The novels of the Once Upon a Time in the Texas Panhandle series are not only love stories but also touch on family loss, interracial relationships, PTSD, alcoholism, and class differences. Each story spans across several generations and can be considered a multigenerational family history.

The series is appropriate for young adults, adults, and older readers alike. The history of the TEXAS PANHANDLE serves as the backdrop to each book and is woven into the character development and the story itself, so that you are learning pieces of Texas Panhandle history while reading an exciting and engaging book.

Each novel can be read independently as a standalone. Despite the serious topics covered in each book, one thing is certain: there will always be a happy ending.

The “Hallmark” of Books

Young girls finds her first love and survives tragedy

TAYLA OF THE GOLDEN SPREAD

A Tornado of Love

Just when things started to look up, a tragedy struck—a tornado swept through town, knocking down barns, buildings, and killing the parents of her new love interest, leaving him to take care of his four siblings. Will Tayla see the light at the end of the tunnel or will the tornado threaten all that she worked for? Find out in the first novel in this series.

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COLLEEN AND THE STATUE

Challenging Racism

Do you think it’s possible to rewrite history? Colleen Johnston believes it is. Founded on Irish teenager Colleen Johnston's interactions in 1955 with a Confederate soldier's statue in a Texas public park, this historical fiction novel ties directly into the continuing heated struggle to remove such pervasive monuments across the USA, and especially in the old Confederate States. Because it looks so directly at American slavery and the continuing legacy of problems stemming from it and the Civil War it fostered, the novel also ties directly into the powerful Black Lives Matter movement that is at the forefront of the news right now, and seems likely to stay there.

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GLENRIO: MARTA MARIA’S TALES FROM TWO CITIES

A Healing Romance

Colm earns the respect and admiration of both Texans and New Mexicans after someone reveals he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his bravery in the Korean War. Upon his arrival in Glenrio, he was battling suicidal thoughts, but Marta Maria’s love becomes his saving grace.

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LITTLE ALICE LANDERGIN

A Ghost Town Romance

When Miss Julia received a phone call from her attorney, she could have never in her wildest dreams imagined what he was about to tell her. She was in a will and she had been granted guardianship of two small children - her brother's grandchildren, two young girls. But her brother had been dead for thirty years.

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TAMMIE’S DESTINY

Fate Takes the Reigns

Do you believe in Fate? Is it possible that two people are meant to be together? That it is their Destiny? After Grant and Tammie cross paths, they realize that they may have more in common than they thought. While Grant’s father tries everything in his power to prevent them from forming a bond, nothing can stop what is meant to be.

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Young girl runs away and finds love with a retired war veteran and helps him through his PTSD

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BETH’S STORY : A RUNAWAY BRIDE

For Better or For Worse

In 1955, Beth Dalton is a runaway bride. Her father, who owns a large ranch in the Texas Panhandle, in effect sells his daughter to keep the bank from foreclosing on his mortgage. Mr. Dalton signs a contract with one of the wealthiest oil-and-gas tycoons of the region: his daughter for the mortgage. The forty-five-year-old widower will take the eighteen-year-old beauty in exchange for his paying off her father's mortgage.

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GINA THE BONSAI GIRL

Two Love Stories

This novel tries to understand why that was and shows the long-term consequences for Japanese American families from wartime hysteria. This novel tells two love stories. A single mother finds love again after a decade as a war-widow. Her twelve-year-old daughter falls in love for the first time. The mother, Regina Walker, was married to Tim Umezawa, who died in Italy while serving in the 442nd. In 1954, she returns to Texas from California with her daughter, Gina, who is half-Japanese. Gina faces prejudice against persons ethnically Japanese.

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NADYA: THE RESTORATION OF A FLYING TIGER

Love Takes Flight

Would Howie listen to Nadya and allow his angel to help him? Would falling in love with her save him? Would her love be enough for the restoration of a crashed Flying Tiger? Read this story to find out how the love of a remarkable woman saved Howie.

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SUSANNA’S BALLAD

Finding Where You Belong

This story involves adoption, searching for roots, passing for white, white supremacy, effects of prejudice on people of color. But it is, above all, a love story—love overcoming every obstacle. This story follows Susanna’s family, from her grandparents’ assumption of white identities in 1910, through her parents’ early lives, and then from her birth in 1932 to her young married adulthood in 1954, when she finally comes to be proud of who she is: Okie, Cherokee, the “dirt farmer’s daughter,” and the peacemaker for the very diverse families of the Clark Place Co-op.

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texas panhandle history — But … what is the Texas Panhandle?

The “Top” of Texas that is 165 miles square and is made up of twenty-six counties each consisting of farms, silos, and ranch land.

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"What strange and challenging times we live in now. Colleen and the Statue, the fifth novel in the Once Upon a Time in the Texas Panhandle series, echoes certain current US events in creative and inviting ways. It ties directly into the continuing heated struggle to remove such pervasive monuments across the USA, and especially in the old Confederate States. "

— Professor James Robert

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