Wills' latest novel draws on Flathead history
Author Karen Wills’ new novel is a saga of deadly deceptions and dark desires whose main protagonist is a woman attorney practicing law in the early 1900s.
The West Glacier-area author initially began writing the book with a contemporary storyline, but it “just wasn’t working,” she said in a recent interview, until her husband suggested writing it as a historical novel.
The story clicked, and Wills’ inspiration for the novel’s main character came while doing research for the book. Knowing she wanted a female attorney involved in solving a mystery, she began investigating the history of women in law.
“All Too Human,” is inspired by the real-life Ella Knowles, an attorney who practiced law in the Flathead Valley as early as 1905.
Wills based the main character of her book, Rebecca Bryan, after Knowles.
As described on Amazon, Bryan, the first woman to practice law in Kalispell, is sent by her uncle and senior partner to a remote hunting lodge near the Canadian border. She’s to find the missing will of his deceased longtime love, the wealthy artist Lucinda Cale. After a broken coach wheel forces her to set out in the winter forest at night, she meets Cale’s son, Bretton. The next morning, he takes her to the fictional Eagle Mountain where she meets the rest of the dysfunctional Cale family. There Bryan also discovers Lucinda’s hidden diaries, which tell of a naive bride’s victimization that hardened her into a manipulative, murderous matriarch. Lucinda’s estate is large. Each heir is desperate. Those involved reveal themselves to be “All Too Human.”
“I think people will find the book enjoyable,” Wills said. “There are elements of mystery and it’s set in the town of Jennings, an actual historical river port town near Libby that is now just a few (ruined) foundations.”
Wills was born in Conrad at her maternal grandparents’ home while her father was serving in the Navy during World War II. Raised in North Dakota, she would return with her family to spend summers in Montana. She became a mother, a teacher of elementary and university students and eventually an attorney, practicing law for 14 years in North Dakota where she was often the first woman counsel ever to step foot in some of the courtrooms across the state.
Wills has always been a history buff, is currently a blogger and the author of two other novels. Her first book, “Remarkable Silence,” was a self-published thriller set in the Middle East. In “River with No Bridge,” she writes closer to home after pondering what it might have been like as an early inholder in Glacier National Park. “River with No Bridge” largely takes place in the North Fork of the Flathead.
Wills’ books can be found at Montana House in Apgar, Canyon Foods in Hungry Horse, Bad Rock Books in Columbia Falls and The Bookshelf in Kalispell. A sequel to “River with No Bridge” is finished and Wills is publishing it soon. She is currently writing the third book in that series.
Fans can also read her posts on Glacier Park history on her webpage karenwills.com