Review of Historical Novel Trilogy

      "All three books, meticulously researched, provide insight into the gold-fueled creation of the unruly, unruled Montana Territory. The books satisfy in the way iconic Western films satisfy, evoking our love for adventure, romance, triumph against adversity; offering us other people's adversity even when it does not end if triumph; engaging our longing for a time that seems simpler (even if it wasn't). But they are more than that. Elpel is a writer committed to understanding how and why things happen, who the players are, what the truth of history is, how the dynamics of history evolve. I think it is exactly that kind of attention--a deep interest in the real world that produced her fictional characters--that pulls the reader into the reality of that world."

--Ruth Rudner, Lewis & Clark Journal, March 2019

Historical Novels
Set in Montana Territory, 1866 - 1879
Trilogy by Jan Elpel

      Berrigan's Ride is a love story that unfolds in the gold rush days of Sterling, Montana Territory, 1866 - 1868. Kent Berrigan heard the call to go West in the company of other Confederates seeking peace and a new identity after the Civil War. He pursues the one woman who captures his fancy, Marion Patton of Coloma, California, who has a vision of the future of the country if not her own destiny. Berrigan's Ride is first in a trilogy exploring attitudes and relationships at a time of sweeping changes in the Territory and across the newly unified expanse of the United States. [Read more...]

Package Discount Berrigan's Ride Healers of Big Butte Heirloom China Total = $48.00 Your cost: $35.00 (Save $13.00!)

Berrigan's Ride
A Novel by Jan Elpel

      Berrigan's Ride is a novel of love, abandonment and acceptance set primarily in Hot Spring District, Madison County, in southwestern Montana (Norris), 1866 - 1868, and a drama of symbolic healing between North and South after the Civil War. Paperback. 284 pages. September 2016. ISBN: 978-1-892784-37-7. $16.00

From the back cover:
      Kent Berrigan never expected to fall in love with raw, remote Montana Territory. He recognizes himself in the night flight of wild horses running past his shack in the gold fields of Madison County, 1866. "His pulse stimulated to breaking in this land of intemperance, temper, and indifference with an edge on its own terms. He yearned to run with the herd-as with the horses, another life formed a past he ran from, or a future he was running toward..."

Berrigan's Ride $16.00 Package Discount Berrigan's Ride Healers of Big Butte Heirloom China Total = $48.00 Your cost: $35.00 (Save $13.00!)

      "The first attempt I've read to create in fiction the post-war trauma experience of 1860s veterans of both sides of the Civil War residing in Montana Territory... a good read."

--Jeffrey J. Safford, PhD, author Mechanics of Optimism

      "I am impressed with how much careful work went into the manuscript. The attention to historic accuracy and detail, the poetic descriptions of landscape and flora, and the vistas and scenes. And with a style of dialogue that seemed quite 'in period.' It seemed to me there was a consistency that made it a fast and easy read.

      "I think American males, in large measure, have suffered from post-war trauma throughout our history, and their families, children, and innocent bystanders have all suffered the effects. So the characters you describe-the men-from Kent to Benson-are just like the men we have always known! In short-your characters seem perfectly normal."

--Theodora Kreps, PhD (Ret.) Anthropology, Stanford University

Healers of Big Butte
A Novel by Jan Elpel

      Healers of Big Butte is a light-hearted story of relationships and inner struggles during a little-known period of silver mining in Big Butte, Montana Territory, 1875-1877. But historic events intrude on the once pristine mile-high bowl on the Continental Divide, where miners and cattlemen come into conflict, and tensions lead up to the Nez Perce War. Paperback. 284 pages. July 2017. ISBN: 978-1-892784-39-1. $16.00

Healers of Big Butte $16.00 Package Discount Berrigan's Ride Healers of Big Butte Heirloom China Total = $48.00 Your cost: $35.00 (Save $13.00!)

      "Healers of Big Butte is another significant story from one of Montana's historical writers. The attention to detail and accuracy in Jan's latest novel, set in and around Butte, one of the most historically important places in Montana, cannot be overstated. The Healers are intertwined with each other in caring for the people of the Territory, albeit their opinions and practices are very different. It truly helps us understand life in the 1870s in the mining cities of Montana Territory."

--Margie Peterson, Editor and Oral Historian

      "Healers of Big Butte is a peek into the lives of strong women from different cultures in early Montana Territory. Jan Elpel does an excellent job of bringing history to life in her portrayal of the different styles of healing used on the western frontier, focusing not only on western medicine but on traditional healing practices as well.

-- Crystal Alegria
The Extreme History Project, Bozeman, Montana

Heirloom China
A Novel by Jan Elpel

      Heirloom China is a murder mystery that pits Patrick Colter's obsession against unknown forces in the silver mining town of Butte, Montana Territory, 1877 - 1879. Patrick risks all for a chance to solve a cold case in revenge of his role model and mentor, a man who inspired him to attend Harvard and bring law and justice to the Territory. His wife, Shelley, becomes a rising star in the movement for women's equality and the vote, which threatens Patrick's sense of a man's place and position.

      Heirloom China is the third novel in the trilogy and traces the early women's suffrage movement from East to West, 1877 - 1879, a sliver of time prior to the rise of copper kings of Butte. Paperback. 284 pages. Ships January 2019. ISBN: 978-1-892784-45-2. $16.00

Heirloom China $16.00 Package Discount Berrigan's Ride Healers of Big Butte Heirloom China Total = $48.00 Your cost: $35.00 (Save $13.00!)

      "Jan Elpel's expertly-researched Montana tale, Heirloom China, brings with it danger, intrigue, courage and hope. Follow Patrick, Shelley, Neva and their friends as they survive the turbulent streets of Butte, Montana Territory, the struggle for women's suffrage, and the raw excitement of impending statehood. Jam-packed with adventure and fascinating history, this book will capture you from the very first page."

--Rachel Phillips, author of Legendary Locals of Bozeman

      "In Heirloom China, Jan Elpel's third novel in a Montana trilogy, she writes with the same precision and graceful strokes that distinguish her drawings and paintings. Realistic characters build their lives in early Butte amid city shops, vivid landscapes, political discourses, and unsolved murder. From wedding gowns to meeting halls, historical details abound, providing insights into the times while expanding the story's charm."

--Anne Hepburn Ore
Historic mining town resident and former bookseller

About the Author: Jan Elpel, Psy.D, grew up near the Headwaters of the Missouri River. That sense of history frames the stories she creates set in the mid-nineteenth century. Her family's (Jewett's) lifestyle among descendants of early immigrants in the 1940s was little different than that of the settlers in Berrigan's Ride eighty years earlier. She wrote the 1958 John Colter pageant for the original Colter's Run in Three Forks, Montana. Her family later moved to historic gold camps of Virginia City and Pony. Elpel's series of historical novels celebrate the wild horses of Madison and Jefferson counties, and the Jewett's herd of horses that thundered off the dry hills to water at the handpump in front of the Parker Homestead.

      Looking for life-changing resources? Check out these books by Thomas J. Elpel:

Green Prosperity

Roadmap to Reality

Living Homes

Participating in Nature

Foraging the Mountain West

Botany in a Day

Shanleya's Quest

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