Mariano’s Crossing, a Novel

Winner of the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Contest, Mariano's Crossing will transport readers to the early days of settlement in the Colorado Rockies.
Mariano Medina, former mountain man and friend to the likes of Kit Carson, has changed with the times and made a place for himself as a successful businessman with a trading post on the Big Thompson River. With his Indian wife, Takansy, and his children, he strives for the same recognition and respect from his neighbors that he'd earned among the mountain men. But the influx of new settlers instead brings bigotry and resentment. As his business interests expand, Medina pins his hopes on his daughter Lena, an accomplished horsewoman whom he's determined to turn into a "lady" as part of his desire for acceptance and admiration along the Big Thompson. But his wife has other ideas. She wants Lena to pursue her skills with horses, her "spirit path."

This is a novel of family dynamics and community prejudices set against the larger backdrop of the taming of the West. Based on real characters and the mysteries connected with historic events, author David Jessup has woven the mesmerizing tale of a group of people at odds with each other as they struggle to find their places in a rapidly changing landscape.

"Mariano's Crossing is a beautiful, exciting, wonderful novel...I couldn't put it down....It does what good historical fiction should do-places me in what John Gardner calls the 'vivid and continuous dream." -Laura Pritchett, recipient of the PEN USA Award and the Milkweed National Fiction Prize

"What a vivid piece of writing! The craftsmanship is most impressive. And the multiplicity of perspectives makes the truth tantalizingly elusive. Great stuff!"-Louis Bayard, NY Times bestselling author of Mt. Timothy