Fortune's Price

<p><strong><u>Maxy Awards 2025 Runner-Up: Historical & Adventure</u></strong></p><p><strong><em>Fortune's Call</em> is superbly written. Great contrast in characters and the historical detail is incredible. Great authenticity. Once you start reading I dare you to put it down! -James Robert Daniels author of <em>The Comanche Kid</em> and <em>Jane Fury</em></strong></p><p>Pegg 14 yearned for adventure. He and his father left their family on a hardscrabble farm in Vermont to chase a desperate dream. After his dad died of fever on the high plains Pegg's confident world fell apart. He found himself saddled with their partner Fred Hoyt who proved worse than useless.</p><p>Now it is up to Pegg to keep his father's dream alive. But California in the 1850's is a raw lawless place full of constant danger. Subsisting largely on hope Pegg battles wild rivers savage beasts floods and fires. Even when the American River yields the gold that will allow Pegg to return home in triumph Hoyt's addiction to trouble threatens not only Pegg's success but their very lives. Can the boy who trusts too much keep his duplicitous partner from driving them to ruin?</p>