Melvina (The extended edition )
Melvina
The Color of Power
About the Book
Print on demand available here
store.bookbaby.com/book/Melvina
Our story opens in 1884 with the discovery of a murdered prostitute in Deadwood, South Dakota. U.S. Marshal Seth Bullock arrives at the scene and reviews the evidence splattered over the body. He then decides that it is time to interview the most notorious Madam in the Red River Valley, MELVINA.
What made Melvina Massey so mysterious? Was it her racial ambiguity, or the fact that she leverages this at every turn? Why do prosecutors set up fake witnesses to convict her? How does a 63 year old woman pass for 49, was she really that beautiful? Was she a successful brothel owner or bootlegger, which is true?
In 1900, an older seductive woman in her 60s rides a lonely train car. Her destination is far different today than it was twenty years ago. She closes her eyes and remembers that first trip to Fargo. Back then in 1881, she shares a car with a very pretentious young woman, dead set on evangelism and ridding the northern territory of the scourge of mankind. ALCOHOL. The woman clad in black from head to toe, her red hair and snow white skin are a perfect contrast to her drab clothing. Juxtaposed to the drab and righteous, sits the opposite in every way. Melvina is 40 but looks at least 20 years younger, fashioned in white to include her bonnet, shoes, and umbrella. Melvina, the mulatto from the east. Her presence takes the air out of the room, a woman so striking that most do not venture to guess her ethnicity. No, they are admiring her beauty and primal considerations of race are not welcome. Melvina Massey is every inch of seduction.
Unsolved murders, deceit, sickness, political intrigue, statehood, affairs of the heart, will come to pass, but bitterness will stand between these two women until the end.
Come with me as I take you on a journey back in time, to discover a family's distant relative and the true color of power... MELVINA.
This is a speculative historical fiction based on the real Melvina Massey, written with permission from her descendants.
REVIEWS:
"This story was about Melvina Massey, but there is a ton of other characters involved in this story, and since third person omniscient is used, the reader is in their head as well. This was probably what scaled back the excitement for me a bit. I would’ve preferred to see it through Melvina’s eyes alone and omniscient doesn’t give me that opportunity. I was delighted to have a chance at reading and reviewing this piece of history. I came to the very real conclusion that this is not only the Massey family history, but it is African American history. It is a raw account of what not only passing Black women would sometimes resort to do to support themselves, but it is what women resorted to in such a male dominated era. Just based on that incredible foreword alone, and the ending I would recommend it. If you are a history buff and you love to take a journey into the past give Melvina:The Color of Power a read.T. Austin"
Bundles that include this book
Table of Contents
- Foreword
- Introductions
- Chapter 1
- Chapter 2
- Chapter 3
- Chapter 4
- Chapter 5
- Chapter 6
- Chapter 7
- Chapter 8
- Chapter 9
- Chapter 10
- Chapter 11
- The Descendants
- Conjugal Visits
- When Henry met Anna
- The New Reformers
- The Negress Dies
- Union Station
- Daddy what you doin?
- Transcript of Divorce
- Making the Case the Historical Melvina Massey
- INFORMATION ON MIMA AND OTHERS
- Bismarck Penitentiary
- The Church, The Brothel, and water
- 1902 Trial
- About the Author
The Leanpub 60-day 100% Happiness Guarantee
Within 60 days of purchase you can get a 100% refund on any Leanpub purchase, in two clicks.
See full terms
Do Well. Do Good.
Authors have earned$11,716,512writing, publishing and selling on Leanpub, earning 80% royalties while saving up to 25 million pounds of CO2 and up to 46,000 trees.
Learn more about writing on Leanpub
Free Updates. DRM Free.
If you buy a Leanpub book, you get free updates for as long as the author updates the book! Many authors use Leanpub to publish their books in-progress, while they are writing them. All readers get free updates, regardless of when they bought the book or how much they paid (including free).
Most Leanpub books are available in PDF (for computers), EPUB (for phones and tablets) and MOBI (for Kindle). The formats that a book includes are shown at the top right corner of this page.
Finally, Leanpub books don't have any DRM copy-protection nonsense, so you can easily read them on any supported device.
Learn more about Leanpub's ebook formats and where to read them
Top Books
Recipes for Decoupling
Matthias NobackWrite software that survives
OpenIntro Statistics
David Diez, Christopher Barr, Mine Cetinkaya-Rundel, and OpenIntroA complete foundation for Statistics, also serving as a foundation for Data Science.
Leanpub revenue supports OpenIntro (US-based nonprofit) so we can provide free desk copies to teachers interested in using OpenIntro Statistics in the classroom and expand the project to support free textbooks in other subjects.
More resources: openintro.org.
CQRS by Example
Carlos Buenosvinos, Christian Soronellas, and Keyvan Akbary- Leverage your Software Architecture skills by learning everything about CQRS in detail with lots of examples
- Develop faster applications by applying CQRS and fostering Read Models and Projections
- Learn how to apply CQRS into a brownfield project from a pragmatic approach
C++20 - The Complete Guide
Nicolai M. JosuttisAll new language and library features of C++20 (for those who know previous C++ versions).
The book presents all new language and library features of C++20. Learn how this impacts day-to-day programming, to benefit in practice, to combine new features, and to avoid all new traps.
Buy early, pay less, free updates.
Other books:
Jetpack Compose internals
Jorge CastilloJetpack Compose is the future of Android UI. Master how it works internally and become a more efficient developer with it. You'll also find it valuable if you are not an Android dev. This book provides all the details to understand how the Compose compiler & runtime work, and how to create a client library using them.
Maîtriser Apache JMeter
Philippe Mouawad, Bruno Demion (Milamber), and Antonio Gomes RodriguesToute la puissance d'Apache JMeter expliquée par ses commiteurs et utilisateurs experts. De l'intégration continue en passant par le Cloud, vous découvrirez comment intégrer JMeter à vos processus "Agile" et Devops.
If you're looking for the newer english version of this book, go to Master JMeter : From load testing to DevOps
Ansible for DevOps
Jeff GeerlingAnsible is a simple, but powerful, server and configuration management tool. Learn to use Ansible effectively, whether you manage one server—or thousands.
The PowerShell Scripting and Toolmaking Book
Don Jones and Jeff HicksLearn the patterns, practices, and details of PowerShell Scripting and Toolmaking from the industry's two most recognized experts on the subject.
Mastering STM32 - Second Edition
Carmine NovielloWith more than 1200 microcontrollers, STM32 is probably the most complete ARM Cortex-M platform on the market. This book aims to be the most complete guide around introducing the reader to this exciting MCU portfolio from ST Microelectronics and its official CubeHAL and STM32CubeIDE development environment.
Introduction to Data Science
Rafael A IrizarryThe demand for skilled data science practitioners in industry, academia, and government is rapidly growing. This book introduces concepts from probability, statistical inference, linear regression and machine learning and R programming skills. Throughout the book we demonstrate how these can help you tackle real-world data analysis challenges.
Top Bundles
- #1
Software Architecture
2 Books
"Software Architecture for Developers" is a practical and pragmatic guide to modern, lightweight software architecture, specifically aimed at developers. You'll learn:The essence of software architecture.Why the software architecture role should include coding, coaching and collaboration.The things that you really need to think about before... - #2
CCIE Service Provider Ultimate Study Bundle
2 Books
Piotr Jablonski, Lukasz Bromirski, and Nick Russo have joined forces to deliver the only CCIE Service Provider training resource you'll ever need. This bundle contains a detailed and challenging collection of workbook labs, plus an extensively detailed technical reference guide. All of us have earned the CCIE Service Provider certification... - #4
Pattern-Oriented Memory Forensics and Malware Detection
2 Books
This training bundle for security engineers and researchers, malware and memory forensics analysts includes two accelerated training courses for Windows memory dump analysis using WinDbg. It is also useful for technical support and escalation engineers who analyze memory dumps from complex software environments and need to check for possible... - #6
All the Books of The Medical Futurist
6 Books
We put together the most popular books from The Medical Futurist to provide a clear picture about the major trends shaping the future of medicine and healthcare. Digital health technologies, artificial intelligence, the future of 20 medical specialties, big pharma, data privacy, digital health investments and how technology giants such as Amazon...