Tom Tatum will sign copies of his latest book “Adobe Daze” Saturday, May 28 from 12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. at Between the Covers Bookstore in Telluride, Colorado. “Adobe Daze” is Tatum’s third book in the “New West Trilogy”, previously publishing book one and two, “Fiji 1970” and “Telluride Top of the World”. “Adobe Daze” is set on a sprawling ranch in northern Taos County, New Mexico and spills into Southern Colorado. It’s the sequel to his novel “Telluride Top of the World” set in the four Corners of Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico in 1979 and tells the story of Cooper and Judy Stuart’s epic battle to save the big YbarC ranch near Telluride Colorado from the ski industry developers. “Adobe Daze” picks up the story in 2019 with their twenty something rugged, athletic, blonde son Trey who is sent to operate the families sprawling Ute Peak Ranch near Taos New Mexico. It’s a new west-old west action saga with romance, greed, land and water rights fights, drug gangs, gunfights, gold, Pueblo Indians, Anglo ranchers, Spanish Settlers families, cows, horses, pickups, trout and mountain lions.
Trey is the protagonist in “Adobe Daze” with stunning black haired brown-eyed Maria Duran or M as her friends call her. M is half Spanish and half Apache. She drives a restored Shelby Mustang, drag races and rides fast horses. The deadly action unspools when Trey is summoned by his father to the YbarC in Colorado to run the families New Mexico ranch. He meets M on his drive to the YbarC in his father’s Maserati. Drug runners attack them after M’s high-speed pass of their big wheel pickup truck. Hooves thunder like the high-speed dragsters M drives. Bullets fly from the new AZTEC cartel drug gangs as Trey, M and the cowhands’ work the ranch. Tension flares in New Mexico’s Anglo, Spanish and Pueblo Indian cultures over land and water. The conflict is set in the ambience of the legendary Taos artists’ community with Trey and M’s romance under the greatest magic hour sunset light in the world the Spanish call vista del ocaso.
“ The result may be billed a Western, but to view ‘Adobe Daze’ as a traditional story of the past would be to do it a disservice. It’s both a contemporary examination of the roots and results of long-standing cultural attitudes and interactions and a story of love, struggle, and intrigue as modern-day issues in New Mexico and Colorado come to life.”, reviewed Diane Donovan of Midwest Book Reviews. “Tom Tatum is particularly adept at capturing the social and political contrasts and conflicts between different people who all have visions of what opportunity, freedom, and achievement could look like in the West.”
Tatum is an accomplished film and TV producer/director, whose work has been seen by a worldwide audience and includes notable titles like “Double High”, “Winners Take All” and “Greenpeace’s Greatest Hits”. Tatum Video’s indy action/extreme sports program library spans 35 years and is one of the largest in the world. Tatum is also proud of the environmental work he has done over the years including working in the Carter/Mondale administration at the Office of Conservation and Solar Energy in communications.. When not running Ute Peak Solar, Inc., roping and riding on his Ute Peak Ranch in New Mexico or spending time with his beloved wife, Kathryn, he can be found skiing the “white gold” on the vast slopes of Telluride. For more information on Tatum, visit tomtatumauthor.com.
