Beyond the myths. Beyond the Crown. Only iron and blood remain.The American frontier was not built by dreamers or noble pioneers. It was forged by the castoffs of history-gallows fodder, prostitutes, thieves, and runaway indentured servants desperate enough to trade the grime of London for a new kind of prison.Set against the harsh, unyielding backdrop of the 17th century, KANAWHA: A Leap into the Unknown follows Jem and Meg, two souls bound together by the mud of the Thames and the violent death of a corrupt nobleman. Escaping the Tyburn noose on a forged parish pass, they are packed into the dark hold of the Cutter Conveyor and sold into brutal servitude on Silas Vance's Virginia tobacco plantation.When war erupts between the planters and the Powhatan Confederacy, Jem and Meg break their chains and plunge headlong into an untamed, uncharted continent. Carrying their newborn child into the primeval wilderness of the Appalachian Mountains, their fight for survival leads them straight into the territory of the powerful Cayuga Nation.Stripped of English law and pursued by ruthless bounty hunters, Jem must transform a stolen clearing pickaxe into a weapon of war. To earn a place in the land of the dark water, they must abandon everything they knew of the Old World and carve out a new lineage-one that no crown or master will ever own again.Written in a lean, evocative style akin to impressionist brushstrokes, KANAWHA delivers a sharp, visceral, and unvarnished chronicle of raw human resilience on the early American frontier.
