BELLE O' THE WATERS: SECOND EDITION

Belle Waters lives in dread of her upcoming birthday, since all girls in the 1850s Mormon settlement of Salt Lake become marriageable at age fourteen. She knows it is her duty to marry, to bring Heavenly Father's children into the world, but she's not interested in marriage to anyone, especially not the Prophet, an old man with smelly breath and hairs in his nose. When the US Army invades Salt Lake, intent on arresting the Prophet, he summons Belle's father and tells him to gather his family and leave. They will establish a new colony to the north. Although freed from the threat of marriage to the Prophet, Belle is now faced with a much greater danger as she and her family flee their home to embark on a treacherous journey. This is a work of fiction, but is based on a true historical event, the Mountain Meadows Massacre of Sept. 11, 1857, which sparked the short-lived Mormon War. Although set in a world 150 years in the past, the themes and issues explored in this novel are timely and current: religious freedom and extremism, the role and status of women in society, and even the contemporary topic of homegrown terrorism.