Historical Romance
West Strand presents The Truxtons, early 20th century American romance from parlor courtships to bootlegged brandy. Each book can be read as a stand-alone, and the series is listed below in chronological order.
1906, Hillside, North Carolina
HOW TO MEASURE A MAN
Would-be engineer Georgia Truxton devises a thrifty substitute for expensive football safety gear for her brother Cooper’s team, but when he catches her fitting a uniform with their long-time friend Leopold Rigby and an inconveniently placed measuring tape, he offers a bargain: Leo must pretend to court Georgia to quiet the simmering gossip around their friendship, and he won’t tell their father.
A scandal buried in Leo's past means he will never meet her family’s approval. The courtship charade is to teach them to play by the rules, but he might throw caution—and a fifteen-year friendship with Cooper—to the wind.
1908, Hillside and Raleigh, North Carolina
A RACE WITH A ROGUE
Maudie Hamilton’s politician suitor dumped women’s suffrage from his platform, but dumping him in return wasn’t enough. Furious and armed with her former beau’s insider knowledge and strategy, Maudie is out to find the perfect candidate to champion her cause and challenge him in the upcoming election since she cannot do it herself.
Bored with society and daydreaming of escape out west, Cooper Truxton isn’t exactly the right man for the job—and he might have a campaign strategy of his own.
1917, Amiens, France
DON'T ASK ME AGAIN
In this spinoff from The Truxtons series, two family friends from the first books find their own second-chance love story in war-torn France. When Lavinia Harper's first love arrives by ambulance to the base hospital where she works as a Red Cross surgical nurse, she can no longer avoid the fears and feelings—and the three proposals— she ran across an ocean to escape. As he recovers from a devastating injury, Matthew Berger, ever pragmatic and rational, finds himself believing in fate for the first time.
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Works in Progress, publishing in 2026
The Next Generation
All Interested Parties (1931): Cathleen Rigby, Leo and Georgia's daughter, turns her comfortable life upside-down for Trip Holloway, a bootlegger and writer with a secret that will shake her family's core.
A Matter of Some Urgency (1934): Emmeline Truxton Hale, Maudie and Cooper's daughter, returns to Hillside after her husband's death and encounters Andrew Rigby, home from New York for the first time in fifteen years—and just in time to help her out of a fix.