Impatient with Desire

Western Heritage Award Winner for Western Novel 2011

In the spring of 1846, Tamsen Donner, her husband, their five daughters and eighty other pioneers headed to California in eager anticipation of new lives out West. Everything that could go wrong did, and an American legend was born.

The Donner Party. We think we know their story - starving pioneers trapped in the mountains perfrorming an unspeakable act to survive - but we know only that one harrowing part of it. Impatient with Desire brings us answers to the unanswerable questions: What really happened in the four months the Donners were trapped in the Sierra Nevadas? And it brings to stunning life the woman behind the myth.

Historians have long known that Tamsen kept a journal, though it was never found. In Impatient with Desire, Burton draws on years of historical research to vividly imagine this lost journal - and paints a picture of a remarkable heroine in an extraordinary situation. It is a passionate, heart-wrenching story of courage, hope, and love in hardship.

Hardcover, 248 pgs, Hyperion Books

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