South Wind

by Don Coldsmith

In his towering epic novel Tallgrass, bestselling author Don Coldsmith captured as never before the historical panorama of the North American Great Plains.  Set in the land of unlimited horizons called Kansas, it evoked an age of innocence, exploration, and discovery, covering the period from the arrival of the first European settlers through the expansion of a new world and a new nation in the early nineteenth century.

Now, in a narrative as sweeping as it is enthralling, the award-winning author of the Spanish Bit saga takes us back to the years of turbulence and turmoil that followed--a time of massive migration and political upheaval, of bold ambition, grand adventure, and violent change.

It was 1846, and from the banks of the Missouri to the crests of the Rockies, limitless opportunity awaited those with the ambition and the courage to seize it.  But with the promise of fortune there also came the certainty of danger.  Over the next two decades, the relentless onrush of civilization--steamboats, telegraph lines, and railroads--would change the West forever.  And so would the drumbeat of war.

As Kansas struggled to unite in a bid for statehood, the nation was torn apart by insurrection and civil war.  The passions dividing America, sparks that flew across the Great Plains, exploded at Fort Sumter, Shiloh, and Gettysburg, setting off a cycle of violence and vengeance, of blood and fire from which no one could escape.

This extraordinary story of hope, hatred, and hardship brings to life the farmers and soldiers, the outlaws and opportunists, the immigrants and orphans who came from all corners of the globe to call Kansas home.  Here is former trapper Jed Sterling, who has overcome a terrible tragedy only to face a haunting visit from a past he thought long dead...John and Nancy Willett, who fight to protect their home and sons from the terrors of raiders...Abigail Botts, a Confederate spy who falls in love with a Union lieutenant.  Here you will meet the men, women, and children who watched their world go up in flames...and the future rise from the ashes.

South Wind is the compelling, vividly realized account of an evolving nation swept up in the whirlwind of war and progress...and of a diverse people seeking the path to a promised land across four hundred miles of Kansas frontier.


From the Hardcover edition.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Westerns

592 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published April 6, 1998

About the author

Don Coldsmith was an American author of primarily Western fiction. A past president of Western Writers of America, Coldsmith wrote more than 40 books, as well as and hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles. His “Spanish Bit Saga,” a series of related novels, helped to re-define the Western novel by adopting the point of view of the Native Americans, rather than the European immigrants.

Reviews

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable historical fiction read that covers the mid-west before, and after, the Civil War. The story of different people, and their lives in the unchartered territory, is awe inspiring.