Fiction and History

fromElder Mountain: A Journal of Ozarks Studies

I swear, Yates introduces characters so genuinely and fully, you’re stunned to discover they weren’t figures borrowed from history…. Yates can set a scene with the best of them, and capture the broad vistas of battle as ably as he evokes the most tender exchanges between family and lovers. His Morkans, Michael and Leighton, must navigate a treacherous terrain of betrayal, treason, battle, prison, murder, and redemption. Their reward, like the reader’s, is so very worth the journey…. Further, I suspect readers of Civil War fiction, 19th century Ozarks life, and those who care about the lives of fathers trying to pass on some legacy to their sons will be grateful to Yates and Moon City Press for Morkan’s Quarry. My hope is that it remains on shelves for quite some time, dazzling us with its prose, seducing us with its plot…