SUSAN GIBBS 

My debut historical fiction/romance novel, The Bend in the River (ISBN 097146670X), took nearly five (5) years to write. I was working at a regular full-time job and plugging away at the book on nights and weekends. To my surprise, I soon realized that I had something, so my wonderful husband worked with me so I could quit my job to write full-time. A month after I left my job, the book was finished! We formed Hawkshadow Publishing so we would have control of all aspects of the writing and publishing processes. 

After friends and family read the manuscript and loved it, I found the courage to print a small run and test market the book locally in Michigan. Word of mouth spread across the US and many libraries and independent bookstores picked up the book. When Borders Books & Music chose to stock the book, I was delighted! Reader response was overwhelmingly good, so we printed more books and released it nationally in October, 2004.  

I am both humbled and honored to receive fan mail from all over the U.S., Puerto Rico, Canada, Great Britain, and Norway. I reply with my gratitude to every single letter, e-mail, card, or phone call that I receive. Above all, I value what readers think. You can send feedback to me through our web site: www.hawkshadowpublishing.com. You can also read chapter one on the site and link directly to on-line retailers that sell the book!  

The story of The Bend in the River was running around my mind for more years than I’ll admit until I had the guts to put it on paper. Then, the story took off and went in directions I never foresaw. I loved doing the research and finding new ways to enhance the plot. It is a romance as well as an epic saga. The profound love between Emma and Shea Hawkshadow drives every event throughout the story. I loved creating these characters and I hope that you will love them too! 

I am eternally grateful to all of you who have bought the book and I will always do my absolute best work for future novels. My next novel will be The Widow’s Walk, set in 1850’s Massachusetts. After that will come Fortunate Daughter, set in 19th century England, followed by Her Soldier, set in the aftermath of the Battle of Gettysburg. There are probably a dozen other story ideas I’ve been working with. I just hope that I live long enough to write them all!

THE BEND IN THE RIVER

Susan Gibbs -- Hawkshadow Publishing 

Kansas, 1877: After the sudden, tragic deaths of her parents, seventeen year-old Emma Jorden is left an orphan and must fend for herself. She heads for the safety of a remote trading post, the only civilization in the region.

On her journey, she becomes lost in a freak autumn blizzard and hovers near death. Shea Hawkshadow, a mixed-blood Cheyenne warrior, rescues her and takes her to the Cheyenne reservation in the Indian Territory. Following an impulsive love affair, Emma and Shea marry. Their marriage sparks condemnation amongst settlers and soon such intolerance escalates to attempted murder.

Escaping with their lives and little else, Emma and Shea risk a journey across the vast western frontier. Many trials await the couple in their search for a life free from persecution. Emma masks her increasingly fragile emotional state until years of repression exact a dreadful toll. She battles to unearth the causes of her mental instability hindered by the lack of compassionate treatment in the 19^th century.

Emma’s transformation from a guileless girl into a complex woman with an unflinching will to survive is remarkable and moving. The Bend in the River is an absorbing saga of savagery, love, secrets, and healing.

To read chapter 1, visit the Hawkshadow website!

Excerpt from Chapter Nine of The Bend in the River by Susan Gibbs: 

Montana, 1878: Emma is married to Shea Hawkshadow, a mixed-blood Cheyenne warrior. After the couple reunites after a long separation during the Cheyenne Outbreak of 1878, they settle at a large Sioux and Cheyenne reservation in Montana. A local militia, led by a religious zealot intent on killing Emma and Shea for their interracial marriage, attacks the encampment. 

As Emma got nearer camp, she saw Shea running hard just ahead of the soldiers. He was trying, she knew, to get to the lodge where his rifle was hidden. She helped round up the remaining Cheyenne and hurried them away, and turned to see Shea being pursued by a man on a large brown horse. She ran back, trying to wave and warn him over the noise and smoke. The air was thick with bullets as they whizzed past her and thudded into the ground, throwing up dirt and rocks, obscuring her vision.

Terrified and powerless to help him she turned and ran for the ditch, but tripped over an exposed root and fell hard to the ground. She scrambled up, then a rough hand grabbed her by the hair. She screamed. A man, who was not a soldier, curled his fist around her long hair, pulled her with him and turned his horse east, dragging her away from the battle. She stumbled and fought, trying to loosen his grip and keep away from the horse’s crushing hooves. Shea saw her and screamed her name, but she did not hear. She was taken to a narrow cleft just out of sight of the camp and thrown to the ground. She scrambled up quickly, but the man barred her way with the horse’s body. She tried to dodge him and run away, but he leveled a revolver at her head and she froze, her heart pounding.

“Guess I won the reward for catching you, you little whore. I should just shoot you now, but I want the twenty bucks. Mr. Tyler has a special reunion planned for you and your pagan husband.” He grinned horribly, showing what few blackened teeth remained in his mouth. “But if you try and run, I will shoot you,” he growled.

She slowly backed off, fearing for herself and for Shea, but her wondering did not last long.

Moments later, three more men rode into the cleft, led by the man on the large brown horse who was dragging Shea by a rope cinched round his chest. He was gashed, bloody, and covered with dirt. He rolled and twisted to a stop then lay still. Emma made a move toward him, but the click of a revolver stopped her dead. Her kidnapper dismounted and leered.

“You’re pretty feisty! Maybe a white man is just what you need to turn you around. You’ll forget all about this Injun after a few minutes with me!”

Her heart thudded as he approached, rubbing his crotch. The horror of being raped again gripped her and she screamed, twisting away from his rough, dirty hands.

The man on the large brown horse cut between them. He was thin with a hawkish face and thick, short dark hair. “Enough, Louis! That is not our purpose today.” He pushed the ugly, paunchy man aside with his well–trained horse and dismounted.

Another man got off his horse and roughly pulled Shea to his feet. Emma saw Shea swaying, barely able to stand. “Shea!” she sobbed. A vicious slap was delivered by the man who had kept Louis back. She staggered but remained on her feet.

“You will not speak another word to your husband,” the dark man said, with terrifying composure. “I am Paul Tyler, leader of the militia.” His voice then assumed a menacing, hysterical pitch. “You are both sentenced to death for effrontery and fornication in the eyes of God! You are a harlot and your husband a savage and you dare to mix the races!” He came close to her and spoke with frightening nonchalance. “I have to do this, you see. What you’ve done can never be forgiven. You can never have a place among decent people. I’m really doing you a favor.”

A chill rattled through her entire body.

Tyler nodded to a man still mounted who produced two ropes and threw them over the limb of a dying tree that grew between the rocks in the cleft. Twin nooses dangled at the ends.

Emma looked to Shea, who briefly met her eyes, but Tyler punched her hard in the face and she fell to her knees with a whimper. Shea made a move towards her, but was backhanded by Louis. He twisted and fell, sprawling in the dust. Both Emma and Shea were pulled to standing and their hands were bound behind them. The ropes were cinched around their necks. Emma stiffened and prepared to die.

“Your executions will serve as a warning to others who dare to mix the races!” Tyler said with chilling triumph.

Louis chuckled. “Your plan worked perfectly. Catching them was easy. The parley was a great excuse. Yep, too easy.”

Shea swallowed hard. The meeting with Tyler had been a ruse. He felt ashamed for trusting and dread for Emma, who was about to die beside him.

At a nod from Tyler, the rider holding Shea’s rope looped it around his saddle horn and spurred his horse.

Emma shrieked in horror as Shea was hanged, kicking and gasping. Then something burned her cheek and she recoiled as a loud crack sounded a split–second later. The man with Shea’s rope somersaulted off his rearing horse and the rope around the saddle horn uncoiled. Shea hung suspended a moment, then fell to the ground in a heap. Emma struggled to free her hands and twist out of the noose.

Tyler whipped around and saw Adam kneeling in the brush, taking aim again. Tyler turned back and fired his revolver at Emma. The bullet lifted her clear off the ground, shattering her left shoulder. She landed in the dirt flat on her back, her hands mashed beneath her.

Adam’s next shot hit Tyler in the head and he dropped where he stood. The two remaining men mounted, spurring hard for Adam, who held his ground and took careful aim, ignoring the return fire. He fired twice expertly, killing them both. Adam mounted his horse and galloped for the cleft, pulling his mare to a hard stop.

Shea lay in the dirt, semiconscious, fighting for breath and spitting up blood. His right shoulder and leg were twisted at grotesque angles. Adam moved him carefully. The rope around his neck was so tight that Adam had to cut it away with his knife.

“Lie still, my friend. I’ll get help.” He cut Shea’s bonds and scrambled over to Emma, who lay still, her face, hair, shoulders, and chest covered in blood. For a horrifying moment he thought that she was dead, but she took a breath and groaned. Cradling her to his chest, he moved her with care, severing her bonds and sliding off the noose around her neck. Holding her with one arm, he pulled off his jacket and shirt then checked her wound. It appeared that the bullet had passed straight through her shoulder.

As he tied his shirt around the wound, she spoke in a shaking whisper. “Shea . . .”

Adam laid her gently down. “He’s alive. Lie still. I’m going for help. Those men are dead. They can’t hurt you anymore.” Adam allowed himself tears as he pulled his bedroll and blanket from his horse and covered Emma and Shea. Shirtless, he put on his jacket and quickly rode away to signal for a wagon. His coat was soaked; the sweet smell of Emma’s blood made his stomach roll. 

Excerpt reproduced with permission from author and publisher