The Ghost Town Preservation Society Julie — Simon Clark

Does the past really matter? Fleeing a failed marriage and a failed profession, a woman decides a Montana ghost town holds the key to the mystery of her birth.

AJ Armstrong is a college professor “on the dangerous side of forty.” She likes frontier history and has an eye for fools and irony -- herself included. Wanting a change, she packs her vintage Bel Air and heads to Montana to solve a long troubling mystery: Who was her mother, and why did she abandon her?

The search lands AJ in Misfire, a colorful town with odd characters and old secrets. Roped into a job with the town's weekly newspaper, AJ quickly makes eccentric new friends and a powerful enemy. Meanwhile, her personal search is turned upside-down by the unexpected arrival of her adoptive parents -- who were always one step ahead of the law -- and her cheating ex-husband.

AJ is warned to “leave the past alone.” But digging through history is what AJ does best, and she is determined to find out who she is -- or was. As lives intersect and mysteries mount, the long abandoned mining town where AJ was born at last gives up its ghosts.

This manuscript won the Utah Original Writing Competition. It has sharp humor, distinctive characters, and a satisfying conclusion. The author directed the Writing Center at Southern Utah University and is an award-winning reporter.