The Madstone

With echoes of Lonesome Dove and News of the World,the riveting story of a pregnant young motherher childand the frontier tradesman who helps them flee across Texas from outlaws bent on revengeeven as an unlikely love blossoms. Texas1868. As nineteen-year-old Benjamin Shreve tends to business in his workshophe witnesses a stagecoach strand a passenger. When the man persuades Benjamin to help track down the vanished coach–and a mysterious fortune left aboard–he is drawn into a drama whose scope he could never have imagined. The missing coach has a surprise in store: its other passengers include Nella pregnant young womanand her four-year-old sonTotwho are on the run from Nell’s brutal husband and his murderous brothers. After learning of their plightBenjamin offers Nell and Tot passage to the distant Gulf of Mexicowhere they can escape to safety. This chivalrous act will prove more dangerous than he could have expectedas buried secrets–including a cursed necklace–reveal themselves. Even as Benjamin falls in love with Nell and imagines life as Tot’s fathervengeful pursuers are on their trail. With its vivid characters and expansive canvasThe Madstone calls to mind Larry McMurtry’s American epics. The novel is full of eccentric actionunrelenting periland droll humor–a thrilling and beautifully rendered story of three people sharing a hazardous and defining journey that will forever bind them together.