Beauty for Ashes

I've been away but I didn't realize that it had been so long. Busy, Busy, Busy. So I thought I had better check in. Just finished a book by Win Blevins. The title is Beauty for Ashes (Forge, 2004). It's the continuing story of Sam Morgan, the young fellow who left the east to go to beaver country as a fur trapper. The first book was So Wild a Dream. In this novel Sam continues to grow, falls in love with a young Crow maiden, survives his first buffalo hunt, being captured by the Sioux and escaping naked (shades of Hugh Glass), comes back to the Crow people naked, without clothes, weapons, beaver traps, going to his first rendezvous, breaks his first horse, and comes through it all.

A few writers have written successful novels and series of several books about the beaver trade and the mountain man period of U.S. history. Win Blevins is among them. Others are Terry C. Johnston, Richard S. Wheeler and William Johnstone. Give any one of them a try if you like that sort of story. Or maybe you'd like to try something completely different from anything you've read. Here's a good place to start.