Barbara Peters and Patrick Millikin from The Poisoned Pn teamed up to talk about the latest books by Taylor Brown and Peter Stark. Both books are set in New Mexico, and have some similarities, although they’re very different. Brown’s new book is Wolvers and Stark’s book is The Lost Cities of El Norte. The authors talk about the themes of their books. You can order signed copies of the books through the Webstore. https://store.poisonedpen.com/
Here’s the summary of Wolvers by Taylor Brown.
“Violent, tender, thrilling…He keeps our attention until the final, startling sentence.” The New York Times Book Review
From the Southern Book Prize winning author of Rednecks: a thrilling novel of pursuit, survival, and redemption between two species in the American Southwest
Broke, dispossessed, and angry at the government after losing his family’s New Mexico ranch, Trace Temple is looking for revenge. He’s living out of his truck when a shadowy militia movement hires him to take down the legendary she-wolf of the Dark Canyon pack, One-Eleven. But One-Eleven is no ordinary wolf. Cunning, fiercely protective of her young, and seasoned in the ways of men, she leads her pack deep into the forbidding desert peaks and canyons, always one step ahead of pursuit.
After a harrowing brush with death in the backcountry, Trace has a change of heart—only to be replaced by a professional hunter and assassin named Murdoch, who ruthlessly pursues his animal quarry while stalking Trace himself.
To survive, Trace must join forces with a pair of unlikely allies: a survivalist animal protector who deploys feral senses and deep wilderness skills to protect the wolves, and Imogen Cruz, a local rancher, childhood friend, and unrequited love of Trace’s early years. Together, they must fight to protect not only themselves and the Dark Canyon pack, but ultimately, the Gila Wilderness itself—the world’s first designated wilderness area.
In Wolvers, award-winning author Taylor Brown presents a suspenseful, thrillingly-written tale set at the burning edge of today’s Southwest, where once-extinct wolves have returned, the land is tinder-dry and fragile, and desperate men seek to reclaim what they believe is theirs to rule.
Taylor Brown is the recipient of the Southern Book Prize, Montana Prize in Fiction, Ron Rash Award, Georgia Author of the Year, and others. His novels include Fallen Land, The River of Kings, Gods of Howl Mountain, Pride of Eden, Wingwalkers, Rednecks, and Wolvers. An Eagle Scout and avid motorcyclist, he has lived in Buenos Aires, San Francisco, the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, and traveled extensively in the American West. He currently lives in Savannah, Georgia, where he is the founder and editor-in-chief of the custom motorcycle publication BikeBound. His website is www.taylorbrownfiction.com.
Here’s the description of Peter Stark’s The Lost Cities of El Norte.
“Peter Stark is a uniquely gifted storyteller.” –DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN
By the bestselling author of Astoria, a thrilling and masterfully crafted narrative of “one of history’s classic sagas of adventure and first contact” (Hampton Sides): Conquistador Francisco Coronado’s expedition across 2,500 miles of the vast, unconquered North American interior—“El Norte Misterioso.”
In 1540, the grandest exploring expedition ever assembled in the Americas paraded north from the ruins of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan, a glittering column of 2,000 men heading into the unknown. Their destination was El Norte Misterioso—The Mysterious North, present-day United States—where fabulous cities of gold were rumored to shine beyond the horizon. Two years later, survivors began stumbling back, half dead. Lost to poisoned arrows, brutal deserts, starvation, cold, desertion, and countless other hardships, 90% of those who left would never return.
Led by Francisco Coronado and backed by the full weight of the Spanish empire, the superpower of its day, they had expected to seize the land, steal its riches, and subjugate its peoples, just as they had so recently done to the mighty Aztec and Inca empires. But instead they encountered the unconquered American West, populated by complex societies of indigenous nations, masters of a vast and unforgiving landscape who fiercely resisted this European “incursion” onto their lands.
Coronado and his people traversed 2,500 miles of unmapped terrain, ranging across the present-day U.S. states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and finally Kansas. They were the first Europeans to gaze upon the Grand Canyon and the Rocky Mountains; made first contact with the Puebloan peoples; crossed the Sonoran Desert and the Great Plains, where they encountered endless herds of bison and the nomadic tribes who followed them. After leading the largest exploring cavalcade ever assembled in the New World, wearing his gilded armor and bobbing plume, Coronado retreated back to Mexico City two years later accompanied only by a hundred or so hangers-on and carried on a litter, a broken man. America’s Southwest and Plains would remain unconquered for the next 300 years.
A Reading the West Bestseller!
A Pacific Northwest Independent Bestseller!
Peter Stark is an adventurer and historian. He is the author of Astoria: Astor and Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire, a New York Times bestseller and a PEN USA Literary Award finalist. A former correspondent for Outside magazine, Stark has also been published in Smithsonian, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and Men’s Journal. His other books include Young Washington: How Wilderness and War Forged America’s Founding Father, a finalist for the George Washington Book Prize; and Gallop Toward the Sun: Tecumseh and William Henry Harrison’s Struggle for the Destiny of a Nation. Based in Montana, he and his family have also lived in Mozambique and Brazil.
Enjoy the conversation with Taylor Brown and Peter Stark at The Poisoned Pen.