Voyages of Discovery

He journeyed a thousand miles to seek answers to his family legacy and found — and then lost — himself.

Finn Wheeler is a journalist in New France. Separatist passions are rising as an election looms: on one side, nostalgic habitants loyal to a romantic vision of the past; on the other, liberal reformists attached to a federal union with Quebec and Canada. The police killing of an unarmed Black man in the US adds to the tension as riots sweep America and spill across the border into Canada.

Amidst the turmoil, Finn is assigned to cover the political ascendancy of a charismatic Black American bidding for the presidency. He combines the assignment with a personal mission of his own — to investigate his family origins — a quest sparked by a mysterious drawing found among his grandmother’s possessions. He sets out on a journey that leads him into the troubled heart of America and into the past, and experiences a life-altering moment standing atop a stone buffalo monument on the American prairies, which holds the key to his ancestral legacy. Jubilant at the discovery, he is making plans for a new life on the prairies when tragedy strikes, and he loses everything he has worked for.

‘Voyages of Discovery’ completes the five-book saga ‘Monuments of Grass’. For lovers of Michener and Follett, and fans of long-form fiction spanning 270 years of American history.