Hellraisers and Trailblazers – The Real Women of The Wild West Special Signed Edition

Author: Jana Bommersbach and Bob Boze Bell
Published by: Two Roads West
Cover Type: Soft Cover
Page Count: 126 pages

We know all about the bandits and bad boys, the gunfighters and goons, but not the women who held it all together with grit and spit. The reality is plain: there never would have been a settled West without the women—Native and Mexican women here first; Black and White women who followed—all settling the vast, unknown and scary lands beyond the Mississippi River.

But they’ve never gotten their due. If they’re mentioned at all, it’s as whores or tough-living Calamity Janes.

Here’s the good news: You don’t have to dig deep to find remarkable stories of the remarkable women of the West—you just have to care enough to dig.
We cared enough. Meet some of the women who should be in every history book.
—Jana Bommersbach

I agree with my longtime friend and coauthor, Jana Bommersbach, that the tough-living bad girls have gotten too much attention in the past, and I believe she’s absolutely right about the importance of including some newfound worthy women. And she has found plenty! Still, I knew we had to cover the bad girls and the wild women as well, so we’ve included both, to put them in context to each other and hopefully bridge the gap between the two. We both agree on one thing: “Well-behaved women seldom make history.”
—Bob Boze Bell

About the authors:

Jana Bommersbach is an acclaimed and respected journalist whose work has encompassed every facet of the profession: she’s been a reporter and editor for both weekly and daily newspapers; she’s written books and is a major contributor to an anthology; she’s written columns and investigative stories for magazines; she’s appeared on television with both political commentaries and investigative stories. She has been honored with two lifetime achievement awards as “an inspiration to the state’s media community.”

Our wonderful historian and columnist, Jana Bommersbach, who wrote our Old West Saviors column has died after battling a long illness. She was 78 years old. Born in North Dakota, Jana moved to Arizona in 1972 and worked at the Arizona Republic before moving to the Phoenix New Times where she met and worked with Bob Boze Bell. Over the years Bommersbach amassed a boatload of journalist prizes, including being named Arizona’s Journalist of the year by the Arizona Press Club in 1983. She came to True West magazine soon after Bell and his partners bought True West in 1999 and she anchored a column on the heroes saving history. In 2023 Jana and Bob Boze Bell co-authored, “Hellraiser & Trailblazers: The Real Women of The Wild West” and the first edition is sold out. Jana and BBB signed a dozen copies before her passing and these collector’s items will be for sale with all proceeds going to her favorite charity, The Phoenix Library. “She was a great friend and a true Western treasure,” said Bell.

Bob Boze Bell is the author of The Illustrated Life and Times of Doc Holliday; Wyatt Earp; Billy the Kid; Wild Bill Hickok; Bad Men and Geronimo, as well as the quintessential gunfighter series Classic Gunfights I, II and III. Bob Boze Bell serves as executive editor of True West Magazine and has made various appearances as a guest speaker on the History, Discovery and Westerns Channels along with being featured on True West Moments on Encore’s Western Channel. His artwork may been seen on a variety of book covers and in fine art collections worldwide.