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Dorothy Garlock (1929–2018)

Author of The Edge of Town

89+ Works 5,270 Members 66 Reviews 6 Favorited

About the Author

Dorothy Garlock is a Texas native living in Clear Lake, Iowa, who quit her job as a newspaper columnist and reporter at the age of 49 to write novels. She entered her first novel in a contest and lost, but she sold the book. Now, over twenty years later, she has millions of copies in print and has show more had her work translated into 18 languages. So many of her more than 40 books are set in the Old West that Dorothy Garlock has come to be classified as a Western Romance writer. She is a member of the Romance Writers Hall of Fame. Popular titles include Almost Eden, The Listening Sky, and Larkspur. With Hope is a gritty, unsentimental romance set in the Great Depression. Dorothy Garlock also writes under the names Dorothy Glenn, Dorothy Philips and Johanna Phillips. (Bowker Author Biography) Dorothy Garlock is an award-winning author with over 40 published novels. She lives in Clear Lake, Iowa. (Publisher Provided) show less
Disambiguation Notice:

Dorothy Garlock is also known as Dorothy Glenn, Dorothy Phillips, and Johanna Phillips.

Series

Works by Dorothy Garlock

The Edge of Town (2001) 213 copies
Mother Road (2003) 190 copies
Stay a Little Longer (2010) 173 copies
On Tall Pine Lake (2007) 171 copies
A Week from Sunday (2007) 161 copies
A Place Called Rainwater (2003) 159 copies
High on a Hill (2002) 158 copies
Train from Marietta (2006) 143 copies
Leaving Whiskey Bend (1987) 141 copies
The Moon Looked Down (2009) 138 copies
With Hope (1656) 136 copies
With Song (1999) 129 copies
With Heart (1999) 123 copies
River Rising (2005) 123 copies
Song of the Road (2004) 113 copies
Keep a Little Secret (2011) 108 copies
After the Parade (2000) 108 copies
Hope's Highway (2004) 106 copies
Larkspur (1997) 95 copies
Sweetwater (1600) 95 copies
Tenderness (1993) 93 copies
Love and Cherish (1982) 92 copies
More Than Memory (2001) 90 copies
Homeplace (1991) 87 copies
Yesteryear (1995) 83 copies
A Gentle Giving (1993) 83 copies
The Listening Sky (1996) 80 copies
Sins of Summer (1994) 80 copies
Twice in a Lifetime (2015) 77 copies
Ribbon in the Sky (1816) 76 copies
Midnight Blue (1989) 76 copies
This Loving Land (1981) 75 copies
Come a Little Closer (2011) 68 copies
Forever, Victoria (1983) 68 copies
Almost Eden (1995) 68 copies
By Starlight (2012) 68 copies
Nightrose (1602) 67 copies
The Searching Hearts (1982) 67 copies
Lonesome River (1987) 64 copies
Take Me Home (2014) 62 copies
Dreamkeepers (2005) 60 copies
Restless Wind (1986) 60 copies
Under a Texas Sky (2013) 59 copies
River of Tomorrow (1988) 59 copies
Annie Lash (1985) 58 copies
Dream River (1600) 57 copies
Glorious Dawn (1982) 57 copies
Wild Sweet Wilderness (1985) 55 copies
Wind of Promise (1987) 47 copies
The Nearness of You (2017) 46 copies
Wayward Wind (1986) 45 copies
Wishmakers (2006) 43 copies
Sunday Kind of Love (2016) 42 copies
A Love for All Time (1983) 41 copies
Promisegivers (2008) 37 copies
Will You Still Be Mine? (2007) 30 copies
Loveseekers (2007) 29 copies
The Hell Raiser (1990) 25 copies
The Planting Season (1984) 14 copies
Strange Possession (1982) 11 copies
Marriage to a Stranger (1987) 10 copies
Amber-Eyed Man (2006) 10 copies
She Wanted Red Velvet (1986) 9 copies
Sing Softly to Me (2008) 8 copies
Sunshine Every Morning (1985) 7 copies
Hidden Dreams (1983) 6 copies
Gentle Torment (1981) 5 copies
A Daddy Again [3-in-1] (1998) — Author — 4 copies
Passion's Song (1982) 3 copies
Geheime Passionen (1998) 2 copies
Paradies der Sinne (2002) 1 copy
Ze srdce (2001) 1 copy

Associated Works

Tagged

*GR (18) 1930s (18) 3J (17) adult fiction (13) adult fiction book (46) AF (19) AF Gar (28) American Frontier (13) Americana (15) Author G (32) default (43) dorothy garlock (19) ebook (28) F GAR (15) favorites (18) fiction (245) Garlock (15) grandmother (25) H (13) historical (64) historical fiction (88) historical romance (155) Large Print (36) literature cz (13) mass market (18) novel (13) own (18) own-these-books (24) owned (12) paperback (24) PB (16) Practice MARC Import (19) R (31) read (37) romance (325) suspense (15) to-read (184) unread (33) western (52) WWII (12)

Common Knowledge

Other names
Glenn, Dorothy
Phillips, Dorothy
Phillips, Johanna
Birthdate
1929-06-22
Date of death
2018-04-06
Gender
female
Nationality
USA
Birthplace
Texas, USA
Place of death
Clear Lake, Iowa, USA
Places of residence
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA
Clear Lake, Iowa, USA
Occupations
bookkeeper
columnist (newspaper)
author
novelist
writer
Organizations
The Clear Lake Mirror Reporter
Awards and honors
Romance Writers Hall of Fame
RT Career Acheivement Award
Disambiguation notice
Dorothy Garlock is also known as Dorothy Glenn, Dorothy Phillips, and Johanna Phillips.

Members

Reviews

 
Flagged
pollycallahan | Jul 1, 2023 |
I wanted to like this book better than I did. It was about a woman raising her niece while running a boarding house in the 1920s. A hobo comes to stay. Sounds good but it really just missed somehow. Turns out the man is her dead sister's husband who never came home from WWI. Why? He was too scared he was hideously ugly after having acid scar one cheek. Just that. Not half his face and losing an eye or having his legs blown off or something, just the fleshy part of one cheek. I'm like, for that you let your wife of 5 months think you were dead? I might have bought it if it had been a shell shock deal but didn't seem to be. Plus everyone basically knew from the beginning who he was so there was no build up of 'who is this mysterious man?'

Somehow the writing just stayed on the surface and after all the pages were over, I wondered how so little story could fill up so many pages. Motivations just seemed not too clear all around. Somehow the hero and heroine end up in love but I sure didn't see it happen.

This was my first try at this author and I probably won't give her another try. This was one time that I went against my tried and true rule of never buying an author before I tried a book from the library first. There's a reason that's my modus operandi.
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Flagged
Luziadovalongo | 3 other reviews | Jul 14, 2022 |
I disliked this one. Its a book that starts off with its grimness strongly when we first meet our heroine Johanna when her parents has just been murdered and her sister abducted by mexican bandits.Her sister Jacy is later found traumatized after being raped ,she is also pregnant with the rapists baby and has become mute from the ordeal.

Fast forward and the heroine is working as a singer/guitarplayer in a salon (she is really a teacher but no one will hire her after her sister was "ruined") She is approached by a lawyer who offers her a position as a housekeeper to an old wealthy man living in a secluded valley. Thinking its a better job offer than she had so far she accepts and packs up her sister to go.

On the way there the sister catches the eye of a man and he is very kind to her. They later learn he is the old mans illegitemate son. So they come to the valley and it turns out the old man is horrible and he didnt want a housekeeper. He just wanted a blue-eyed and blond woman to come to the valley to marry his OTHER illegitemate son and have blonde blue eyed grandsons since he hates the thought of his son marrying a Mexican girl.

The heroine then encounters the son,Burr who is a big and rude man and dont want to marry a saloon girl (read prostitute) and definetely not one chosen by his hated father. Well what is Johanna and her sister to do but stay until she can leave the valley in a few months time when the caravan comes through next time.
Things are complicated when her sister Jacy and Luis deepens their relationship and decide to marry. All the while Burr and Johanna fighting and misunderstanding each other culminates in her losing her virginity to him. Now they have to marry each other anyways but they are actually in love deep down,even though he flaunts his mistress in front of her. Charming. All the while there is a subplot with Old Macklin threatening to sell the valley and disinheriting his sons.

Its just a lot to unpack here this is an older romance so I was expecting non-politically correct behavior but I didnt expect the sheer amount of description of women being abused. Did things like this happen back then and happen to even to this day? Yes of course but I thought I was reading a romance and instead we got the rundown about how the old Macklin was scum to pretty much everyone he met. Many of these were women.

Burrs mother was "rescued" by Macklin when her familys caravan was attacked by native americans and then she is raped and abused by him. She completely loses her health and dies after a few years.

Then we get Luis mothers viewpoint and its about the same thing. Then a very young native american girl is raped by that pervert Macklin (for some reason the author thought it appropriate to add that it actually felt good to the girl. WTF?) The native american girl is then taken as the third wife/slave of another man of her tribe and we get a lot of scenes where is she beaten and further sexually abused. Leading up to her nurturing a revenge all these years and finally suceeding to kill Old Macklin. No one is really sad about this.

But the whole book was weighed down by these constant barrages of grim flashbacks.The only thing I can find was nice how the sister Jacy could process her trauma and find a loving relationship with a man after what she went through. The romance between Johanna and Burr I merely found tedious. Apart from the female abuse everything in this book was very lacking in that something that makes it readable and with some strange writing choices made by the author.

The ending of the book is wrapped up by Johanna inheriting the valley,but hold on Old Macklin didnt own the valley it is actually owned already by Burr and Luis...and the man who was wanting to buy the valley was actually an agent of Old Macklins brother who just wanted to reconnect with his brother and nephews. TEH END
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Flagged
Litrvixen | Jun 23, 2022 |
 
Flagged
mary23nm | Feb 27, 2019 |

Awards

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Associated Authors

Joan Hohl Author
Anna Fields Narrator

Statistics

Works
89
Also by
1
Members
5,270
Popularity
#4,733
Rating
½ 3.5
Reviews
66
ISBNs
577
Languages
5
Favorited
6
Touchstones
37

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