Through the Narrows

Book 2 of the Tomahawk & Saber series, Through the Narrows, is available now!

Wolf Tongue and Pyke's adventures continue as they return a familiar, but not very friendly, place, prompted by reports of Indian raiding.

Readers that enjoyed the first in the series, Language of the Bear, are bound to like this one. If LOTB was Heart of Darkness meets Lethal Weapon, Through the Narrows is Zulu meets The Searchers.

Yes, really.

Though it's set in the Province of Pennsylvania in the mid 18th century, this book functions very much like a Western. When you read it, you'll see what I mean.

Things get pretty dark in this story. Wolf Tongue's tribe continues to dwindle. Pyke's career has stalled. And both are forced to defend a less-than-deserving town.

Will we see more of Wolf Tongue and Pyke?

I hope so...

Here's the blurb for Through the Narrows:

Wolf Tongue of the Susquehannock and Lieutenant Hugh Pyke of the British Army barely survived their first mission together. Now with the French and Indian War beginning to flame around them, the frontier of the Pennsylvania Colony is restless.

When they’re called back to protect Millers Town from Indian raiders, Pyke and Wolf Tongue discover the settlement is outnumbered and there is no militia to reinforce them. Even worse, Pyke and Wolf Tongue fear the townsfolk harbor secrets just as deadly as their attackers.

As Pyke tries to build a haphazard defense with a band of farmers and children against an almost inevitable slaughter, the mysteries of the town begin to unravel. Pyke realizes his life is in danger from the very people he is duty-bound to protect—perhaps, even from the beautiful French outcast who seems to know more than she should.

With a final, crushing attack imminent, Wolf Tongue hurries to rescue a kidnapped girl who might be the only hope for the town’s survival while Pyke struggles to protect the innocent. As they carve away layers of deceit, both men must confront the terrible truths behind Millers Town to survive the dangers to their lives, their peoples, and their honor.

Through the Narrows continues the historical adventure of the Tomahawk and Saber series, filled with suspense and action that captures the deadly brutality, danger, and strength of Colonial America.

The New Book Is On Goodreads

Language of the Bear

I am super-freaking-excited. The latest book, the best book I've been a part of (so far), is up on Goodreads and out next month.

We're still working with our kick-ass designer on the cover, and we'll have a reveal of that soon. But for now, if you're interested in the book please add it to your TBR on Goodreads. It'll help us build interest leading up to the e-release next month on Amazon.

***

Nate Green is a good friend and a gifted writer. We've both been chasing this crazy dream of writing fiction for a living for awhile. A few years back, we were in his truck, talking about stories and writing and how exciting and difficult and frustrating and interesting the process was and somewhere in that conversation we got the crazy idea to write a book together.

That book eventually became Language of the Bear.

A collaboration really appealed to me. I looked forward to doing something that for years had been a solitary, banging-your-head-against-the-wall pursuit. Working with Nate on a story he was totally invested in also gave me a great sounding board for ideas, character arcs, and story-telling. I hope I've been as helpful to him as he's been to me.

We settled on a historical novel, a good old-fashioned adventure that reminded us of the books we'd read growing up, with one notable qualification. We agreed early on we weren't going to whitewash history and we weren't going to give the characters modern sensibilities. The world would be as it was: increasingly short, often nasty, and sometimes brutish.

We shopped Language of the Bear to agents and editors and got this close several times, which was both encouraging and frustrating. But nobody bit. We passed it around to friends and family and they told us it was great, but of course you have to take the opinions of loved ones with a healthy dose of skepticism. The book, as much as we liked it, seemed doomed to live out its life on our computers.

***

Meanwhile I'd made the decision to indie publish my solo projects, and in particular my paranormal thrillers. Readers slowly but surely found The Unearthed series and once I started to see (very modest) success with it, Nate and I discussed the possibility of indie pubbing Language of the Bear as well. Eventually we decided it was a good idea. As I've said with my own books, the best judge of the work is the reader and this way readers will let us know if it's any good. ;-)

***

Nate and I had such a great time writing the book together, we decided to make it into a series and start another series as well. More to come on those books, but we're hard at work on them.