AMERICAN MARCHLANDS
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Lance Weller's second novel is set in the pre-Civil War 1840s, in a time of American expansion westward when venturing beyond the defined borders of the United States was akin to stepping off into a moral void, a lawless, barely-charted marchland, a cauldron visited regularly by violence and atrocity.
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The American West was ferociously contested by pioneers, outlaws, Indian tribes, the US Army, runaway slaves, scalp hunters, and dispossessed Mexican nationals, each vainly staking their claim to a piece of it only to be challenged by another.
It is into this savage land that Tom Hawkins rode, a killer before his 18th birthday. With him travels Pigsmeat Spence, the haunted participant in the massacre of native women and children during the Black Hawk War, a man still mourning the loss of his beloved wife, and Flora, the beautiful slave abused by her now-dead master and herself a killer of men, each of them together seeking to make his or her own way in the world, to pursue their elusive dreams of freedom.
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AMERICAN MARCHLANDS is currently available in French and can be found in French independent bookstores as well as on Amazon.fr.
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