The sequel to Grey's bestselling Riders of the Purple Sage. A decade after Jane Withersteen and Fay Larkin escaped through Deception Pass, danger finds them again. Fay has been abducted for marriage by a local Mormon group, and she turns to John Shefford, a former clergyman turned cowboy searching for redemption in the wild Southwest. Shefford must navigate the harsh desert, confront violent men, and decide whether to risk everything for a stranger. Grey uses the vast, haunted landscape of Red Lake and Surprise Valley as more than backdrop; the wilderness becomes a mirror for Shefford's internal struggle, his lost faith, his longing for purpose, his capacity for violence and tenderness. The novel deepens Grey's critique of polygamy begun in the first book, but more importantly, it's a story about people caught between worlds: the old frontier and the new, repression and freedom, duty and desire. The Rainbow Trail is Western adventure as spiritual quest, where the desert doesn't just test the body. It reveals the soul.
