The Bears of Blue River

In the forests of 1820s Indiana, a boy faces the wildness outside his family's cabin, and the wildness stirring within himself. Thirteen-year-old Balser Brent has grown up knowing the sounds of the wilderness: the crack of ice in winter, the call of unfamiliar birds, the silence that falls when something dangerous moves through the trees. His family's log cabin sits on the banks of the Big Blue River, and beyond it lies a world where massive black bears roam. Balser has never killed a bear, but he dreams of it. When he sets out to prove himself, first by fishing, then by wandering too far into the dark woods, he finds more adventure than he bargained for: a terrifying showdown with a huge black bear, a night lost in the endless forest, and a horrifying mistake when he dozes beside what he thinks is a bearskin rug, waking inches from death. The one-eared bear, that legendary creature the settlers whisper about, still waits in the deep woods. For Balser Brent, the question becomes whether he can survive his own ambition. This is frontier adventure as it used to be written, raw, vivid, and unforgiving, perfect for readers who crave stories where the wilderness is not a backdrop but a living, breathing threat.