[Rating: PG-13] From the award-winning author of Florida-based historical fiction (Patrick D. Smith Award, Florida Historical Society, 2015, 2018, 2021, 2022). "Tales of Old Florida" is the First novel in the award-winning "Tropical Frontier" series. NOTE: This volume INCLUDES "The Wreckers," the separate and stand-alone novel formatted especially for young readers. The Southern Frontier: A road-less, watery wilderness, uninviting to all but the most stouthearted and adventurous. As great cities were springing up in places like St. Louis, Denver, and San Francisco, the lower peninsula of Florida endured. Here, the panther, the alligator, and the bald eagle remained safe from the restless, meddlesome hands of civilization, continuing as they had for eons past. Renegade Indians, pirates, hurricanes, and man-eating animals - not to mention venomous snakes and bloodthirsty hordes of mosquitoes - reigned supreme. It took a certain kind of person to boldly venture into such an inhospitable environment where a man had only himself and his family upon which to depend. It took men and women with not only vision, but backbone and grit, people like the MacLeods, Dawsons, and Hackensaws, true pioneers who confronted whatever came their way, together, as a family. From shipwrecks to Indian uprisings to buried treasure, blockade runners to murderous beach tramps, and the sad, lonely life of the solitary beachcomber, Tales of Old Florida takes the reader back to a singular time and place that will never be seen again. Above all, Tales of Old Florida is an epic saga of survival and prosperity, love and love lost, and most important, the power of the human spirit to prevail. Tim Robinson has crafted an unforgettable story of the hardy pioneers who settled along Florida’s southeast coast in the early 1800s, years before Flagler’s railroad. This epic novel has it all, from shipwrecked sailors and damsels in distress, to ruthless pirates and buried treasure. There are gifted shipbuilders and fearless blockade runners and unexpected assaults by Mother Nature and Mother Ocean. Readers will follow four generations of the MacLeod, Dawson and Hackensaw families, and share their triumphs and tragedies as the early settlers conquer the tropical frontier. - Stuart News; Stuart, Florida "A Tropical Frontier: Tales of Old Florida" is a work of historical fiction. It is based, in part, on Robinson's "A Tropical Frontier: Pioneers and Settlers of Southeast Florida" and serves as a companion novel to that reference work. It is set in the nineteenth century and follows the lives of Florida sailors and settlers on Biscayne Bay, Indian River, Jupiter Inlet, the Lower East Coast, and New River and Hillsborough. Robinson notes that the main characters are inspired by actual Florida pioneers, and that several of the secondary characters are the "real, living, breathing people" whose stories he collected for his 2005 compendium. Robinson also provides topographical and historical maps of Florida for the reader's reference, and offers a list of suggested readings from his history book. -Florida Historical Quarterly, Summer, 2013. Tim Robinson is a third generation Floridian, his grandfather having taken up a 100 acre homestead on Cape Canaveral in 1924. It was his grandfather and father who instilled in him a love for everything Florida. Tim grew up in West Palm Beach, halfway between saltwater Lake Worth and freshwater Lake Mangonia, where he spent his childhood and youth traipsing through the woods or biking over to the beach or taking in the wonders of Florida in some fashion or another. He presently lives with his wife, Connie, on a small farm in Indiantown, Florida.