Storykeeper - E-book - ePub

"A stunning novel and a joy to read" Helen Hollick, Managing Editor - Historical Novel Society (Editor's Choice)"Smith writes fluidly, and the society he depicts is intriguingly complex." - Kirkus Reviews"Steeped in immediacy and vivid detail." D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer - Midwest Book ReviewThe first recorded Europeans to cross the Mississippi River reached the western shore on June 18, 1541. Hernando De Soto and his army of three hundred and fifty conquistadors spent the next year and a half conquering the nations in the fertile flood plains of eastern Arkansas.
Three surviving sixteenth-century journals written during the expedition detailed a complex array of twelve different nations. Each had separate beliefs, languages, and interconnected villages with capital towns comparable in size to European cities of the time. Through these densely populated sites, the Spanish carried a host of deadly old-world diseases, a powerful new religion, and war. No other Europeans ventured into this land until French explorers arrived one hundred and thirty years later.
They found nothing of the people or the towns that the Spanish had so vividly described. For those lost nations, the only hope that their stories, their last remaining essence will ever be heard again lies with one unlikely Storykeeper.~~~Editorial Reviews of Storykeeper, winner of Best Indie Book Award 2013"'A man without a story is one without a past, ' Smith writes, 'and a man without a past is one without wisdom.' By the time readers have wandered freely through the strange realm of the Storykeeper, they may well find those words more prophetic, and more powerful." - Kirkus Reviews"Storykeeper is a complex read .