Author Description

Running West, James Houston’s fifth novel, is an epic tale of harrowing adventure in the North of the early 1700s, which has at its heart one of the most unusual and compelling love stories ever told. Based on historical fact and real people, the story has its beginnings in the Highlands of Scotland and the treacherous world of Queen Anne’s London, then moves across the Atlantic to the desolate west coast of Hudson Bay. There, William Stewart, a Scottish clerk banished from his homeland, meets the extraordinary Thanadelthur – a young Indian woman of the Dene Nation, who had been taken into the Hudson’s Bay Company’s York Factory after her family was massacred. When the Company’s Governor, James Knight, interested in expanding the fur trade, sees the elegant “yellow” knife that had belonged to Thana’s mother, he sends the resourceful William and the indomitable Thana to find their way back to her homeland to bring back fur and valuable metals. Thus begins a heroic trek into uncharted wilderness, on which the courage and growing love between William and Thana is tested as they, accompanied by a dwindling band of Cree, endure deprivation, violence, and near starvation. Told in a rollicking historic style resonant of the period, Running West is peopled by memorable characters, and is enriched by James Houston’s wide knowledge of the North – its landscape, its native peoples and lore. This is gripping adventure in which James Houston’s narrative skills and meticulous research blend potently. Running West is a book to treasure.