Author Pens Exciting Western Fiction Novel Showing What Can Be Accomplished When People Come Together

First Christmas at Muddy Creek by Richard A. Bartlett is a story about a saloon's unlikely conversion into a temporary church in time for Christmas Mass.

Tallahassee, FL (PRWEB) May 1, 2008 -- First Christmas at Muddy Creek, a new book by American West historian Richard A. Bartlett, is a thrilling story about a Jesuit missionary who makes an effort to convert a saloon into a temporary church for Mass on Christmas Eve in 1865.

Professor Emeritus Bartlett brings together unlikely characters, such as four Irish miners, a Chinese man, a dance hall girl, a Baptist furniture dealer and an inebriated Pennsylvania painter, who help the Italian Jesuit priest create a place of worship which later becomes the first church in the mining community. Although purely fiction, Bartlett drew his inspiration from historian Andrew F. Rolle's true story about Father Giorda's success in establishing the first urban church in Montana on Christmas Eve in 1865.

Beautifully told, First Christmas at Muddy Creek is filled with characters so rich and alive, they seem to walk off the page. More than just a page-turner, Bartlett shows how America can not only tolerate, but embrace all faiths.

For anyone who enjoys a good fiction novel or Westerns, First Christmas at Muddy Creek is an entertaining read for all audiences.

For more information or to request a free review copy, members of the press can contact the author at rbartlett@embarqmail.com. First Christmas at Muddy Creek is available for sale online at Amazon.com, BookSurge.com, and through additional wholesale and retail channels worldwide.

About the Author
Richard A. Bartlett is the author of several award-winning Western books and other genres. His book Great Surveys of the American West won the Spur Award of the Western Writers of America for the best non-fiction Western book of the year. A Colorado native, Bartlett is a professor emeritus at Florida State University, where he taught American West history for 34 years. He lives with his wife in Tallahassee, Fla.

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