by Tom Clavin
First published 2021
Daniel Boone stands at the edge of the American frontier in the mid-eighteenth century. The legendary pathfinder guides desperate colonists beyond the Appalachian Mountains into uncharted wilderness that Native American tribes call home. Violent conflicts erupt as settlers battle for land against indigenous warriors, French forces, and eventually their own British rulers during the Revolutionary War. Boone navigates this brutal landscape where survival demands both cunning and courage. The real frontiersman emerges from these pages, stripped of his popular culture mythology. Contemporary diaries, newspaper accounts, and eyewitness testimony reveal the flesh-and-blood man who opened America's first frontier. Ordinary settlers and larger-than-life figures, both white and Native American, witness the bloody birth of a nation. Their stories of sacrifice and bravery illuminate the true cost of westward expansion. This chronicle captures the fierce struggle that transformed thirteen colonies into an independent country, with Boone as the guide through America's most dangerous and transformative era.
Genres: historical-fiction, adventure, military-history, american-history
Vibes: fast-paced, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: based-on-true-events, survival
Setting: Appalachian Mountains, America
Period: Mid-18th Century, Revolutionary War
383 pages · Hardcover · St. Martin's Press
Content warnings: violence