A Frontier Romance

This compelling work of art engages us on several levels: a narrative based on actual events, combined with imaginative speculation in poetry that is both formal and naturally conversational. The reader will find it a fascinating and ultimately moving piece of Americana. Jonathan Aldrich author of The Ring Road and FoamThis riveting narrative in fast-moving verse reads like a cliff-hanger, but it touches the heart-and engages the intellect-like what it is: genuine history, salvaged in great part from letters and documents of the author's family who played a role in the westward movement of the nation. If you like history well told and bearing the stamp of real people and their lives, read Wendy Ford's Frontier Romance. Rhina Espaillat author of The Field and Brief Accident of LightUsing the time-honored techniques of traditional verse, Wendy Ford has written a timeless love-story. Where most tales of romance come to a happy ending, this one is only beginning: girl meets boy, they fall in love and live happily ever after-but what a life they live together The man who'll come to be known as Judge "Tiger Bill" Campbell and his "pioneer bride" Kate ride west, fleeing her irate father, to settle in Kansas-where not much is "settled." Drought and swarms of locusts destroy their crops; a cyclone tears an infant from them. Wildfires threaten their very existence. As judge, Tiger Bill must stand up to lawless gangs who threaten his life. Nothing, however, diminishes this couple's love for one another; it spills over into love for their neighbors, as they feed the hungry and defend the outsider. A love story, indeed Alfred Nicol author of Animal Psalms and Brief Accident of LightWhen young lovers elope, they build strong civic ties together on the El Dorado, a frontier of mayhem and mishap west of the Missouri. Wendy Ford fashions high adventure out of language whose fine, measured rhythms reconcile the instinctual and the rational strains of human life. Zara Rabb, author of Swimming the Eel and Fracas & Asylum