Site Created: Feb. 7, 2000
Last Update: Aug. 4, 2001

Greetings, and welcome to my little niche on the Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman bookshelf.  Here you will find three complete novels, all inspired by and based upon the series and characters of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, created by Beth Sullivan.

Cameo, my first novel, was written from August, 1997 through September, 1998, and takes place during the "Sully fugitive arc" period of Season Six.  The story revolves around two main elements:  an examination into Byron Sully's family history; as well as my attempt to "retell" the events of this plot line, and offer an alternate—and perhaps more plausible—resolution to Sully's fugitive status than we witnessed on the show.

Time Out of Mind (TOOM), written from October, 1998 through December, 1999, harkens back to an earlier timeframe in the series; namely, the period immediately following the massacre of the Cheyenne at the Washita; and preceding Michaela's and Sully's wedding.  This story was my attempt to address the grief suffered by Sully in the wake of the deaths of Chief Black Kettle, Cloud Dancing's wife Snowbird, and the other members of the tribe that Sully had come to regard as his "extended family."  In the process of coming to terms with these losses, however, Sully—along with Michaela—must face more than one daunting obstacle.

For the benefit of those unfamiliar with the structure of Time Out of Mind, the story is told through the device of first-person journal entries alternating with narrative chapters.  For the purposes of accessing the story from this page, the journal entries and chapters are "paired"; that is, the first journal entry is paired with Chapter One, the second entry with Chapter Two, and so on—with the exception of the final journal entry which closes out the book and stands alone.

Fault Lines is my latest effort, which I began in March of 2000 and completed in August of 2001.  At 67,891 words, it has exceeded the length of a novella and moved into the realm of a novel, but it is the shortest (though I hope the best constucted) book that I've written to date.  Fault Lines is my attempt to write a "Sully and Hank" story.  We've often speculated on the Dr. Quinn List about the shared—but unknown—history between these two fascinating, charismatic men, and bemoaned the fact that the series never really delved into their past.  So I decided to give it a try, and this narrative is the result of the question, "What if . . .?"

I should give fair warning that if you're a Jane/Michaela fan, this story may not entirely be your "cup of willow bark tea", as it were—since the first two-thirds of the story involve Michaela only peripherally. However if you're a "Sully lover" or a "Hank's hussy"—then hopefully you'll find something to interest you. :-)  And yet, as my writing of the story progressed, I discovered that Michaela had a vital role to play after all, so our favorite doctor's fans will hopefully find more to attract them than might be evident at first glance.

Additionally, I should note that some readers may find my interpretation of Sully's and Hank's characters and past association to be surprising—perhaps even shocking.  But bear in mind that this is only my invention—my fictional idea of what might have happened between them.  And I hope that in the end, you'll conclude that I haven't tampered with these characters too very much. :-)

In the seventeen months I worked on Fault Lines, I was forced to take more than one extended hiatus from writing the story--my apologies for the delays.  However now that it's finally complete, I hope that readers will decide it was worth the wait.  I have also done some re-writes of the earlier chapters (no changes in the basic story--just some "judicious" editing to tighten the narrative)--as well as inserting an explanation in Chapter 13 for Colleen being home in Colorado Springs, rather than away at college (even the writer is not infallible! :-)).

Before I leave you to the stories, I want to express my gratitude to my husband Rick for designing and constructing this page for his "computer-challenged" wife. :-)  Rick also deserves the credit for designing the cover art for the novels (below).  I'm particularly delighted with the cover he designed for Fault Lines.  It's as if he showed me a picture of a stagecoach crossing an isolated landscape, and then asked me to invent a story to go along with it (rather than the other way around).
 

Thanks so much for coming by.  I hope you'll stop in again in the future and see what I'm up to.  :-)

Enjoy . . .

Carolyn Williams.