The tragedy of the Donner party constitutes one of the most amazing stories of the American West. In 1846, eighty-seven people—men, women, and children—set out for California, persuaded to attempt a new overland route. After struggling across the desert, losing many oxen, and nearly dying of thirst, they reached the very summit of the Sierras, only to be trapped by blinding snow and bitter storms. Many perished; some survived by resorting

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At the beginning of November 1846 a party of California-bound emigrants was trapped by early snow in the Sierra Nevada. Despite their efforts to escape and the efforts of others to rescue them, by the following April nearly half the company had died of cold and starvation. Some of the emigrants had resorted to cannibalism to stay alive. Though this last detail has become synonymous with the Donner party, it was merely the culmination of a long series...

A novel in verse by the author of The Watch That Ends the Night recounts the chilling survival tale of the Donner party during the 1846-1847 winter from the perspectives of its leaders, a scholarly wife, two Miwok guides, the Reed children, and other historical figures.

Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence
Finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award
A Publishers Weekly Holiday Guide History Pick

"A book so gripping it can scarcely be put down.... Superb." —New York Times Book Review

"WESTWARD HO! FOR OREGON AND CALIFORNIA!"

In the eerily warm spring of 1846, George Donner placed this advertisement in a local newspaper as he and

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The #1 NYT Nora Kelly, a young curator at the Santa Fe Institute of Archaeology, is approached by historian Clive Benton with a once-in-a-lifetime proposal: to lead a team in search of the so-called "Lost Camp" of the tragic Donner Party. This was a group of pioneers who earned a terrible place in American history when they became snow-bound in the California mountains in 1847, their fate unknown until the first skeletonized survivors stumbled out...