Kindred of the Dust

Hector McKaye, the powerful lumber magnate known as 'The Laird of Tyee,' has built Port Agnew from nothing and watches his ships return to port from the cliffs above the town he created. Now he stands at a turning point: his son Donald is growing up, and Hector must decide whether to forge the boy in his own image or let him find his own path. But Donald's world collides with another when he meets Nan Brent, the daughter of a humble sawmill worker who lives on the Sawdust Pile, the contested outskirts where Port Agnew's poorest eke out their lives. What begins as youthful curiosity becomes something that threatens everything Hector has built, forcing him to choose between the rigid class boundaries of his creation and the unpredictable human heart. Set against the raw beauty of the Pacific Northwest timber country, this is a story about what we inherit and what we must finally release.