I’m Lisa Manifold. I’m a USA Today Bestselling author, and I write all forms of paranormal. The thing that drew me to writing was because I wanted to create the worlds I wanted to live in. I love the idea that there’s a complete world of magic living side by side with us. We just can’t see it. That is the reason I write, the reason I dream of story lines and plots. (Okay, and that I saw Labyrinth hundreds of times as a kid and wanted nothing more than for Jareth, King of the Goblins, to come and take me away.)

The stories that I sent are some of my favorites. The first one – Hexes & Hot Flashes – is the story of an older woman who has no choice but to start over. While she’s trying to figure out how to do that, magic literally arrives on her doorstep. Shenanigans ensue, as they often do. I find humans amazing. We are capable of such greatness, such rising to the occasion. That’s what I try to give my characters—the chance to rise to the occasion. 

The next two series, which comprise of six stories, are based around another one of my fangirl loves. I am a huge Doc Holliday fan. It began with my dad watching Westerns when I was growing up, and he and I reading every one of Louis L’Amour’s books. Then I saw the movies Tombstone and Wyatt Earp, and I fell down the rabbit hole of research into who this man, John Henry Holliday, known as Doc Holliday, really was.
This is taken from a post I made about him on November 8th, 2020, the anniversary of his death. He died in Glenwood Springs, only a couple of hours from where I live, and I always go by the building where he passed away when I’m there. Most people do – you don’t have a choice. It’s in the main part of the historic district of Glenwood Springs.

‘133 years ago today, at approximately 10 am, John Henry “Doc” Holliday passed away in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. He was 36. He was buried at 4 pm in Pioneer Cemetery, also known as Linwood Cemetery.

During his life, he traveled all across the US. He was well educated, trained as a dentist, and had practices in several cities before he became ill with tuberculosis. Once he stopped working as a dentist, he made a living as a gambler, and people called him a thief and a murderer from time to time. I have to note, this was never proven to the point where he went to jail. He reportedly possessed a volatile temper. Doc’s fighting with his longtime companion (or wife – there’s not enough proof to say definitely, but rumors of their marriage persist) Kate Horony-Cummings, was public knowledge. (Kate once accused him of robbing a stage coach when she was angry with him.)She stated, however, that after the fight at the OK Corral, reputation, temper, and quarrel with the Clantons notwithstanding, he came back to their room at Fly’s Boarding House, sat on the bed and said, “That was awful – awful!” 

Even with such a checkered reputation, when he got into trouble in Denver, and the sheriffs of both Pima and Cochise Counties in Arizona tried to extradite him (having discovered his whereabouts via the newspapers) the governor of Colorado territory wouldn’t let them do it. People liked him. The amount of trouble people in Denver went to for him at the time is pretty amazing.

I find him interesting, damaged, a menace, and appealing all at once. I recently watched a documentary about him and I knew of most of the authors they interviewed since I have their books. The historical takes on him are fascinating. I love the portrayals of him in pop culture the last thirty years. It’s why he’s a central figure in one of my series. I’m not the only one – he’s become intertwined with the idea of the American Old West.

Should you have a drink this evening, save a thought for Doc. I always hope he’s at peace.’

I’ve never lost my fascination with him, and based on that, I wrote two series around the ‘what-ifs’ of Doc Holliday.

The first, The Deadwood Sisters, is about the direct descendants of Doc Holliday. In real life, he had no children. There are a few random sites that claim he did, in fact, have children, but there is no proof. So I wrote a story where he had an affair with a young woman in Deadwood, South Dakota. He really did spend time there before heading to the southwest. It stands to reason he might have had a relationship. In my story, when Doc left Deadwood, the young woman stayed, and she had a child. That young woman was Desdemona, and she had a daughter that she also named Desdemona (there are reasons). Thus the Deadwood Sisters was born.

The best part about the story? Doc is there. He’s a ghost, who lives with my main characters in a house on Pearl Street in Deadwood. My interpretation of the Doc character is based on my love of two of the portrayals of Doc – Val Kilmer in Tombstone, and Tim Rozon in Wynonna Earp.

In the process of writing the Deadwood Sisters, another character came to life – Deana Holliday, the many times great granddaughter of Doc. I liked her so much that she got her own series, called The Mostly Open Paranormal Investigative Agency. She and the sisters in Deadwood are not only related, their stories overlap and are entwined. 

Both of the series are based in my love of the idea of a magical world side by side with ours. And wanting to see more of Doc, see him in the modern world.
I’ll leave off from my Doc fangirling with a couple of quotes about Doc:

“Doc was a dentist whom necessity had made a gambler; a gentleman whom disease had made a frontier vagabond; a philosopher whom life had made a caustic wit; a long, lean ash-blond fellow nearly dead from consumption, at the same time the most skillful gambler and the nerviest, speediest, deadliest man with a six-gun I ever knew.”
Wyatt Earp – San Francisco Examiner – August 2, 1896

“There was something very peculiar about Doc. He was gentlemanly, a good dentist, a friendly man and yet, outside of us boys, I don’t think he had a friend in the Territory. Tales were told that he had murdered men in different parts of the country; that he had robbed and committed all manner of crimes, and yet, when persons were asked how they knew it, they could only admit it was hearsay, and that nothing of the kind could really be traced to Doc’s account. He was a slender, sickly fellow, but whenever a stage was robbed or a row started, and help was needed, Doc was one of the first to saddle his horse and report for duty.”
Virgil Earp – Arizona Daily Star – May 30, 1882

How can you read those quotes about a person and not want to dive into them? That is the best thing about writing. You can take the things you love, that you’re a super fan of, that you have been shaped by, and make your own creation. I love my Deadwood ladies and all the things that have come to me out of the creating of them.
I hope you will too. 

The idea that they get to live on long past my time is absolutely wonderful.