Book 1, 1846-1849—A would-be trapper traps himself in a shadowy love affair. The first wife of a Mormon polygamist clings to shards of past happiness. A Fort Laramie bourgeois philosophizes about the Oregon Trail. Intrigue and betrayal, unexpected partings and surprising reunions pop up like dust devils. Dramatic river crossings, Indian captures, and dozens of well-drawn winners and losers from New York to New Mexico intermix with true historic places and events—an irresistible, page-turning, history-rich experience from start to finish.

Awards

Winner: US Review of Books’ Eric Hoffer Book Award for Legacy Fiction, 2010

Winner: Colorado Publishers Award

Recommended Reading: Southwest Education Classes, Adams State College, Alamosa, Colorado

Winner, First Place Overall Design: Best Design of a Novel, Colorado Independent Publishers Association

“Over the Mountains of the Moon deserves a wider audience and greater critical attention than a book from a small press is likely to attract. For it is an extraordinary work, a well-written, realistic, unromantic look at several historical and cultural aspects of the West in 1846 ... a stunning picture of life along the Oregon Trail....”

– Amarillo Sunday Globe-News

“The story as told in Over the Mountains of the Moon continues … Ramstetter’s style is unique and sometimes gut-bustingly funny … Descriptions of scenery, like journals from those times, are rich and serve to take a reader back into the wilds of the west as it was before civilization took over. Ramstetter has a way with words, long lost in today’s conventional style.”

– A. M. Wilks, Highland Book Review

Book 3, 1857-1869—News of the massacre of the Fancher wagon train reaches Salt Lake City. A woman has survived, but no one can find her. Brigham Young closes Utah Territory and scatters his flock. In Cedar City a small boy painstakingly fields an army of feathers. A soldier in Fort Defiance, New Mexico Territory, hears a strange tale. The trilogy’s conclusion is a jingle of historical accidents that take a Seneca warrior a thousand miles from home, and afford a British remittance man shelter on a cold winter’s night in the Far West.

Awards

Winner: Colorado Publishers Award, 2007

Finalist: Book Expo of America, New York, 2007

Finalist: 2009 National Indie Awards

“I don't know why one of the large publishing houses hasn’t come begging for the rights to publish this saga. It is wonderful: strong but flawed characters, complex plot, and a sense of place that you can practically smell. If there is a major historical error in the three volumes, I must have missed it. Ramstetter includes a sample of her bibliography in the back of the book, and it is impressive. This is compelling reading, but I recommend that you begin with the first volume and read the books in order. There are so many characters and so many plot twists in the saga that otherwise the reader may not grasp the complexities of the story.”

– Doris Meredith, Amarillo Sunday Globe-News