FIVE STAR WESTERN NEWS:

BY FLARE OF NORTHERN LIGHTS:
A North-Western Story by Tim Champlin

Coming in November!

The last great gold rush began in 1897. More than a hundred thousand people raced toward the Yukon and the Klondike, people from all walks of life and commerce.

Terry Brandon becomes one of them. He throws over his job, leaves his fiancée, and bolts for the North with what money he can scrape together, a paltry $390. On the way he encounters Annie O'Connell, wife of George O'Connell, a man much older than herself, a retired lawyer who is also an alcoholic but no less bound and determined to seek his fortune in the Klondike.

In a drunken, jealous rage, George O'Connell tries to shoot Terry Brandon. For the moment, this ends the acquaintance, but ironically it will develop later in an unexpected fashion when it comes time to traverse the dangerous Canadian waterway system in order to reach the Yukon before it freezes over and arrive at Dawson.

In Seattle, Terry Brandon finds that his money is insufficient to outfit himself for the rigors of the journey ahead and still book the necessary passage by boat to Skagway. By a happy circumstance of mutual need, Brandon partners with the scion of a wealthy industrialist family, Milton Conrad, who wants very much to make a fortune on his own. But another impediment occurs in Dyea where Conrad is beaten and robbed of the money he is carrying.

Before the two men lies the harrowing Chilkoot mountain pass, too steep for livestock but not for the intrepid men and women who venture over it daily by the thousands.

With all the atmosphere and vitality for which Tim Champlin's storytelling is so widely known and loved, BY FLARE OF NORTHERN LIGHTS is a tale of danger and adventure, of men and women braving a challenge against incredible odds, captivating the reader from the very beginning.