Westward Women

"Book I, The Lady of Athenia," deals with a 23-year-old widowed Southern Belle, punished by vengeful Union Officers who order the destruction of her Mississippi plantation, Athenia, forcing the now destitute Davida Julianna Asherton to head West. After much hardship, she finds herself in the middle of a conspiracy to murder President Andrew Johnson. "Book II, The Bright Sentinel," concerns a 17-year-old emancipated slave. Her story covers Maryland plantation life, the cruelty of her Scottish father, and her perilous escape to Washington, D.C. The Creole beauty is enmeshed in a political scandal, grabs blackmail money and hurriedly boards the first stagecoach West. She meets her future husband, a gun-toting cattle ranch foreman, and both are hired by the government to discredit the leader of the Crow Indians, who are threatening to overrun Wyoming-Dakota Territory. "Book III, Flaxen-Haired Warrior," focuses on a German Count's family destroyed in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War. 19-year-old Countess Lisl Maria Von Ost flees toward France. An expert swordswoman, she is forced to kill three enemy soldiers who attacked her. Hired assassins chase her through warring France and neutral Belgium. Fleeing for her life, she finds ship's passage to America and discovers that paid killers pursue her even there. Desperate, Maria escapes into the western frontier.