Skyfire

by Arthur W. Johnson

And thou shalt see the crimson blade, in every restful, shaded glade. Where thou wouldst dare to lay thy head, and make thy soft and slumbering bed. Confess thy sins and thou shalt rest, thy spirits locked within this keep.The fledgling United States is pushing westward, into the midwest. There's wealth and opportunity there if you're willing to work for it. But not all rebirths are monetary. Some are about reconciliation, and about laying to rest the old ghosts of the recent past.Seamus O'Flairty's ghosts chased him away from Athlone, the small village in Ireland where he farmed potatoes with his aging father, and into the New World. But while the Americans shelter him from the long reach of British law, they can't do the same for the specters in his dreams, or the fiance he couldn't save. Alfred Simpson's rebirth begins with the bear that almost killed him. In the roundabout way of new beginnings, it does. Alfred Simpson is healed and renamed by a Blackfoot holy man, re-entering life as Bear-Claw - a strong man, a scarred man, a man who discovers power in violence.And yet the sky in bright red flame, to the West where the sun has long since gone. The sun now rises to the East, what spark it left to oppose the dawn.

347 pages, Paperback

Published April 28, 2020

Reviews

[Amanda Meuwissen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the type of historical fiction that puts you right in the past, living through history through the rich characters and interweaved factual events and people the protagonist meets along his journey. Seamus is so instantly likable and good, while still having his faults and lapses in judgement, that you can both imagine him existing in this time, and wish he had actually been around for all the good he does. When you complete his tale, with the hardships of his life still in Ireland, and in some ways the even worse hardships he faces in the New World before finding some peace with his family, makes you wish you had the next installment the moment you're finished. You'll stop reading ready to pick up The Boys and read on through the rest of this family's journey.