Award-winning writer of Wyatt Earp, An American Odyssey, winner of the 2020 Will Rogers Medallion Award, a 2019 Spur Award Finalist and an “Editor’s Choice” by The Historical Novel Society While Tyler Raintree’s parents are divorcing, the mother hides her son from his abusive father at Camp Itawa in the mountains of north Georgia. There, young Tyler meets nineteen-year-old camp counselor Stoney St. Ney and Bobby Whitehorse, a full-blooded Cherokee man. These two staffers become the boy’s bodyguards and teachers as they try to protect him and his mother from a father who has connections to organized crime. All seems to go well for a time, as Tyler is introduced to the forest and the ways of the Native Americans who had once lived on the land. When the mafia comes to the mountains to abduct the boy, the gangsters must step onto the foreign playing field of wilderness, where Stoney and Bobby are most “at home.” Praise for Mark Warren “Woven with clarity and colorful prose, Warren leads readers on an odyssey . . .” — True West Magazine on Promised Land “A good book offers the ultimate escape . . . armchair travel to those wild places of the imagination. Warren’s book took me to places I had previously not expected to visit, but I’m really glad I went there. — New Zealand Booklovers on Promised Land "Warren's novel paints a vivid picture . . . and its colorful similes will put a smile on any genre-fiction lover's face." — Booklist on Born to the Badge Mark Warren is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Georgia. At Medicine Bow, his nationally renowned wilderness school in the Southern Appalachians, he teaches nature classes and primitive survival skills. The National Wildlife Federation named him Georgia's Conservation Educator of the Year in 1980. In 1998 Mark became the U.S. National Champion in whitewater canoeing, and in 1999 he won the World Championship Longbow title. Warren has written extensively about nature for local and national magazines. He lectures on Native American history and survival skills, and Western frontier history presenting at museums and cultural centers around the country. He is a member of The Historical Novel Society, the Wild West History Association, and Western Writers of America. His Wyatt Earp, An American Odyssey trilogy was honored by WWA's Spur Awards, The Historical Novel Society, and the 2020 Will Rogers Medallion Awards. Warren is a 2022 Georgia Author of the Year recipient for his book Song of the Horseman (Finalist, Literary Fiction). Indigo Heaven and The Westering Trail Travesties are Will Rogers Medallion Award winners. Warren has eighteen traditionally published books: from Lyons Press, Two Winters in a Tipi and Secrets of the Forest, from Two Dot, Wyatt Earp, An American Odyssey, from Speaking Volumes, Indigo Heaven, Song of the Horseman, Last of the Pistoleers, A Tale Twice Told,  Moon of the White Tears, and A Copperhead Summer, and from Wolfpack, The Westering Trail Travesties, A Last Serenade for Billy Bonney, Nate Champion: The Texas Years, and Nate Champion: The Wyoming Years.