Jan. 28, 2025. Editors Richard Melzer and John Taylor began their series of anthologies about Rio Abajo history with the publication of Murder, Mystery, and Mayhem in 2013, never thinking that a second volume was on the horizon anytime soon. Instead, encouraged by receiving the New Mexico/Arizona Book Award for the best anthology published that year, Melzer and Taylor edited a second volume (A River Runs Through Us), a third (Tragic Trails and Enchanted Journeys), a fourth (Mountains, Mesas, and Memories), a fifth (Years Gone By), a sixth (History Surrounds Us) and now this volume, the seventh, (Doorways to the Past).  

With the publication of Doorways to the Past, the People, Places, and Events in the Rio Abajo series has now grown to seven volumes with a total of nearly 220 stories about the history of the Rio Abajo in New Mexico. The wealth of stories and the plethora of unique individuals seems endless. In this volume you will find governors and wrestlers, unsolved mysteries, volcanos and bunkers, and races and rebellions. The stories range from millions of years in the past to the present day. You are sure to find something that strikes your fancy! 

Appearing every two years, these popular volumes became a trilogy and then a heptalogy, winning more book awards and documenting the history of a single region of New Mexico like few if any series have done before. Readers can only hope that Melzer and Taylor never plan to slow down in their production of valuable anthologies in what is now known as the Rio Abajo History Series, published by the Valencia County Historical Society.

Available on Amazon