Uncompahgre: Where Water Turns Rock Red (Threads West, an American Saga Book 3)

The Adventure and Romance of the America, her people, her spirit, and the West. We are all Americans. This is our story.

Uncompahgre-where water turns rock red is the third book of the #1 bestselling, Threads West, An American Saga epic saga, recipient of thirty-seven National/International Awards--Best Historical Fiction, Best Multi-Cultural, Best Romance and Best Western! Compared by reviewers, authors and readers alike to Lonesome Dove, Centennial, and the Sacketts of L'Amour. Called by some the ''Gone with the Wind of the West, '' and "the Sacketts on steroids." Applauded by others as ''rings true and poignant, as authentic and moving as Dances with Wolves.''

In Uncompahgre, the time nears when the first of the next generation of Threads West characters will be born of the brave men and courageous women who have come so far and risked all. The men and women of the saga, having reached their initial destination, pre-Denver, Cherry Creek, are each faced with life-altering decisions. Some must decide to pursue or abandon torrid love affairs that have flowered on the dangerous journey from Europe and across America.

Their lives shaken by events they could not foresee and convergence with souls they could never imagine, they begin to build a nation that's essence is in transition. They have neither country nor culture in common, but their dreams and survival demand a tension filled tapestry of life threads stitched by fate and history.

The Oglala Sioux family struggles to cope with the inevitable change casting shadows upon their lands, culture and scared traditions. The elderly slave couple, and the renegade and his young, traumatized captive--the black-hearted captor unknowingly catapulted by his tortured past into possible redemption--are bound ever more tightly to the arc of the story, their tragedy and triumph-filed tales weaving into the fabric of a collective destiny. The Mormon family streams west in the Great Exodus escaping persecution and searching for Zion. Driven north by the Texas Rangers, an outlaw vaquero with royal, but bitter blood quests for a new sense of self and place.

The touchstones of the past are the guideposts to the future. Uncompahgre-where water turns rock red, is the continuation of this tale of America, her people and the West--new lineages join the many threads of uncommon cultures, differing origins and competing ambitions that entwine into the American spirit. Lives and generations are woven on the loom of history, propelled by fate and freedom to form the fabric that becomes the whole cloth of the nation. This is the tale of that uniquely American meld of the mosaic.

You will recognize the characters who live in these pages.
They are the ancestors of your friends, your neighbors, your co-workers, and your family.
They are you. They are us. We are all Americans.
This is not only their story. It is our story.

In Book Four, Moccasin Tracks, just released in September of 2019, the fires of future deadly tumult between the states has begun to sweep west. The Threads West characters who have journeyed so far race against an early, foreboding winter to establish their homestead, some preoccupied with the serious complications of their pregnancies, others compelled to follow the call of a separate path, but all united to fend off ever-present danger. The ''resolution'' of the ''Indian Problem'' is evolving. It will leave families and hearts broken, forever staining the pages of American history.

​The decades of the Maps of Fate era (1854-1875) novels of Threads West epic saga become the crucible of the souls of generations, the building of the heart of the nation, the destiny of a people, and the relentless energy and beauty of the western landscape. This is the ongoing story of us.

Reid is fourth generation land and cattle, a rancher, and a multiple #1 bestselling author whose works have been honored with twenty national awards. His cowboy heart and poet's pen capture the spirit of the western landscape and its influence on generations of its settlers. His long-standing devotion to wild and remote places and to the people--both past and present--who leave their legend and footprint upon America and the American West, is the inspiration and descriptive underpinning of all of his writing.

"If your mind and spirit are seduced by images of windswept ridge tops, flutters of aspen leaves caressed by a canyon breeze and the crimson tendrils of dying sun...if your fingers feel the silken pulse of a lover and your lips taste the deep kisses of building desire...if nostrils flare with the conjured scents of gunpowder and perfume, sage brush and pine, and your ears delight in the murmur of river current...if your heart pounds at the clash of good and evil and with each twist and turn of interwoven lives you feel a primal throb, then I have accomplished my mission." Reid Lance Rosenthal

Passion fuels each thrilling, history, action and romance-packed novel in this widely acclaimed five-generation epic series of the historical and contemporary American west. Threads West has been compared to L'Amour, and Centennial, and some call the series, the "Gone With The Wind of the West."