In the spring of 1841, a courageous young woman named Nancy Kelsey set out her husband, Ben, and infant daughter, Martha Ann, from their Missouri homestead on a harrowing track that would lead her into the pages of history. With a small band of pioneers, Nancy and Ben blazed a trail across a wild and unforgiving continent to find a new life in the golden lands of California. Historical novelist Cecelia Hollnd gives us an intimate portrait of a remarkable woman who played a crucial role in the settlement of the West. Nancy Kelsey was a courageous young pioneer, and the first American woman to set foot in California. drawing upon Nancy's own accounts of her harrowing journey, as well as the writings of those who traveled with her, Holland has crafted a stunning biography of this amazing woman that is filled with all of the action, passion, danger, and determination that have made her novels bestsellers around the world.
Author
Pen name used by Elizabeth Eliot Carter. Cecelia Holland is one of the world's most highly acclaimed and respected historical novelists, ranked by many alongside other giants in that field such as Mary Renault and Larry McMurtry. Over the span of her thirty year career, she's written almost thirty historical novels, including The Firedrake, Rakessy, Two Ravens, Ghost on the Steppe, Death of Attila, Hammer For Princes, The King's Road, Pillar of the Sky, The Lords of Vaumartin, Pacific Street, Sea Beggars, The Earl, The King in Winter, The Belt of Gold, The Serpent Dreamer, The High City, Kings of the North, and a series of fantasy novels, including The Soul Thief, The Witches Kitchen, The Serpent Dreamer, and Varanger. She also wrote the well-known science fiction novel Floating Worlds, which was nominated for a Locus Award in 1975. Her most recent book is a new fantasy novel, Dragon Heart.
