River Thunder

River Thunder

On the vast and indescribably beautiful South Rim of the Grand Canyon a young Hualapai boy faces a bleak future in 1902. River Thunder's mother has just passed into the Spirit World and his father has nothing left to give the boy except his hand carved flute and his magical gift for music. It is a time in America's history when Native American children were separated from their loving families, tribes and even their ancient and traditional cultures and sent to distant "Indian Schools" for re-education and vocational training. River Thunder will carry his flute, courage and trusting innocence to the Hackberry Day School still standing today on old Route 66 while never once imagining how his fate will one day soar like an eagle over the magnificent Grand Canyon. His life's journey will carry River Thunder into a tender but forbidden love and the terrifying but exhilarating experience of aerial warfare fought in a World War I biplane. RIVER THUNDER was the recipient of the prestigious Western Writers of America's 2009 Spur Award for Best Western Audio Book. The story begins in the early 1900’s and ends shortly after World War I, and is set against the harsh background of Arizona’s rugged northern mountains and the magnificent Grand Canyon. RIVER THUNDER was perhaps my favorite book to write. It was about a "forbidden love" between a young Hualapai boy who has a magical gift with the Native American 3-holed flute and the white daughter of the school principal who comes to change a bad Indian School filled with anger and hopelessness into a place where the students form an award-winning marching band and regain pride and purpose. I spent quite a bit of time on the Hualapai Reservation and learned how big an historic role Indian schools had played in our Western society for many, many years. This novel won the Western Writers of America Spur Award for BEST HISTORICAL AUDIOBOOK of 2010 and, if you read the reviews you will see that it is very highly regarded. When you finish RIVER THUNDER I'm confident you will have a wonderful understanding of the Hualapai, the Havasupai and the history of Indian Schools in America as well as fall in love with the magnificent country surrounding the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. On a personal note, the ending is so powerful and satisfying that it made this author cry with happiness. Enjoy! Author Gary McCarthy has over three million books in print, including fourteen American historical and thirty-four western novels, handled by major New York publishing houses. His first "Canyon Country Books" offering, "Maddie O'Brien and the Christmas Donkeys", is now available for order on Amazon starting with the 2010 holiday season. The author is well suited to writing about the American West; he grew up with horses and received a B.S. degree in Animal Science and an M.S. in Agricultural Economics from the University of Nevada. Before becoming a full time novelist, McCarthy was employed as an economist. He has a keen interest in Native American cultures, especially the Navajo, Hopi and Hualapai who live in his beloved Arizona. Gary McCarthy resides in Arizona with his wife and soul mate, Jane. He has been the president of two Rotary Clubs. He also enjoys hiking and horseback riding in the Grand Canyon Rim Country when he is not traveling the Southwest in search of new stories upon which to base his next novel.