Douglas Preston’s Cities of Gold

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Douglas Preston recently sent this to The Poisoned Pen so we could share it with you. As he said, Cities of Gold will never be at this low price again.

The Old West’s last glimmers flicker through this piercingly beautiful adventure, an unforgettable saga.

–Publishers Weekly
Greetings to my dear readers,
I wanted to let you know of a totally fantastic, unbelievable, fabulous and never-to-be-repeated deal to buy one of my very favorite books for $2.99!!
That book is CITIES OF GOLD. It tells the true story of my thousand-mile journey on horseback across Arizona and New Mexico, retracing Coronado’s crazy search for the Seven Cities of Gold. It was my second book and I still believe it is one of the finest books I’ve ever written.
I was 33 years old when I made this arduous journey in the year 1989. My partner Walter Nelson and I rode from the Mexican border through the harsh deserts and mountains of the American Southwest. We traveled cross-country, not following trails, and came close to killing ourselves in the process. We packed our supplies, found water and grass where we could, and slept under the stars. On several occasions we nearly died of thirst and at other times almost starved. Walter packed on horseback an 8 x 10 Deardorff view camera of the same kind used by Ansel Adams. He took thousands of beautiful photographs that captured the last dying glimmers of the Old West. We met many extraordinary people along the way, from ranchers, desert hermits and cowboys to Pueblo and Navajo Indians. But despite the dangers and extreme hardships, it was a staggeringly beautiful adventure, which changed both our lives forever.
The book was originally published in 1992 without photographs, because my publisher said adding photos would make the book too expensive. I was really cast down by this decision. Many readers wrote me, asking:
Where the heck are Walter’s photos?
So now, I have created a new ebook edition of CITIES OF GOLD which includes over one hundred never-before-published photographs. Not only did I reproduce many evocative photos taken by Walter, but I also included scores of fascinating and rare historical photographs of Native Americans, pioneers, prospectors, Indian pueblos, and vanished landscapes. 

This special ebook edition of CITIES OF GOLD is now available to you, my readers, for $2.99, but only for a very limited time. 

If you have any interest in buying it, you should do so now because the price will go back up at the end of the month.


The book will never, ever be sold at this low price again.
Here are links to the special $2.99 ebook of CITIES OF GOLD
Reviews of CITIES OF GOLD
“A fearful, fascinating tale.” -Los Angeles Times
 “The Old West’s last glimmers flicker through this piercingly beautiful adventure, an unforgettable saga in which Preston, astride his horse Popeye, traverses the desert and mountain wilderness of Arizona and New Mexico retracing the trail-blazing 1540-41 expedition of Spanish Explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado in search of the legendary Seven Cities of Gold … In place of the mythical winning of the West, Preston unfolds a harrowing tale of loss.” -Publishers Weekly
“The entire book is a sheer pleasure to read.“
-The San Diego Union-Tribune
“A Blue Highways on horseback, well worth the trip.”
-Kirkus Reviews
“A riveting yarn, with as many turns as a switchback road.”
-The Christian Science Monitor
“A journey of historical importance.” -The New York Times
Photographs by Walter W. Nelson, Robin Sachs.
Historic photo of Geronimo
courtesy of the Arizona Historical Society