Centennial

The novel begins with the formation of the Rocky Mountain landscape and the animals that inhabit it before turning to the Indigenous peoples, trappers and traders who move through the region. At the confluence of the South Platte River, the fictional community of Centennial develops through encounters among Arapaho and other Native peoples, French and Scottish adventurers, Mexican families and American migrants.

As settlement expands, the story follows ranchers, farmers, soldiers, merchants and labourers through frontier violence, cattle drives, homesteading, ecological change and the growth of modern Colorado. The families who build Centennial inherit both opportunity and conflict, revealing how western expansion depended upon ambition, displacement and the transformation of land into property.