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Jack Marshall Maness is a Coloradoan with four generations of roots in Kansas. He is a librarian and professor at the University of Colorado. Song of the Jayhawk, his first novel, won the 2015 Colorado Book Award for Historical Fiction.For bonus material and forthcoming titles, go to: www.jackmarshallmaness.com |
Books by Jack Maness
 Song of the Jayhawk Print: ISBN-13: 978-1-940936-02-4 Ebook: ISBN-13: 978-1-940936-03-1 Before there were red states and blue states, there was Kansas. A place that divided the nation like never before, or since. A place where mayors were generals and journalists were terrorists. A place where drunken guerrilla armies roamed the prairies, threatening farmers and rigging elections. A haunted place where mysterious beasts led settlers into undiscovered countries.Follow two young families as they they struggle with rattlesnakes, tornadoes, ice-storms, childbirth and morality in a war-torn land. A growing love between them, built over holiday ham and whiskey, is threatened as they are drawn into the territory’s cycle of political violence. They must ultimately decide if they are friends or foes, and it isn’t long before they all have blood on their hands.This is a story of loyalty and betrayal, courage and despair. Set in the 1850s, the dilemmas faced by the Dugan and Hawkins families are similar to those faced by every generation in a long-divided America. It asks how ordinary people cope with extraordinary times, why they sometimes turn to violence, and more importantly, why they usually do not. |
 Now Available! The Second Song of the Jayhawk: Where Waters Converge. The Battle of Hickory Point is over but the fight for Kansas and the soul of America has just begun. Can two women find something deep inside of them that is strong enough to keep their warring families together? Where Waters Converge continues the story of the award-winning Song of the Jayhawk. Set in the tumult of the 1850s, people risk everything for slaves, land, religion, and rights. Love and loyalties are threatened by greedy beasts, and life is as unpredictable and dangerous as the swelling rivers that threaten to take everything away. A novel of lust and loss, greed and buffoonery, faith and doubt, this is the second in a trilogy inspired by the author’s great-great grandparents. The Historical Novel Society wrote Maness works a “great deal of fascinating history into his narrative, and the personalities he fills the plots with . . . are conveyed very vividly through excellent dialog.” |