The ancient desert O’odham people’s creation stories parallel the path a young Guy Thornton takes to emerge from the “maze” he has made of his life. The novel opens in the center of the narrative as Guy, a down-on-his-luck Arabian horse trainer fresh out of prison, is getting drunk at the Wander On Inn. He spends the next several months living in the central Arizona desert with an elderly O’odham woman who seeks to teach him “tribe spirit,” while alternating chapters recount the past and his big break when the wealthy Frank Fielding hires him to tend to his champion Arabian mare. Unfortunately, Guy becomes entangled with Fielding’s wife, Lily, and her teenaged, mentally unstable sister, Rose, derailing his dreams of success and belonging through deceit and callous betrayal.

Navajo Monster Slayer myths are threaded through the story of the runaway Rose, now sixteen, and Jack Rawlings’ cattle ranching family who live near Winslow in northern Arizona. Jack’s cancer diagnosis sends him reeling, and feeling ranching life in the west is ending with his own, he undertakes a vigilante mission only to disappear on the Navajo reservation after falling into an abandoned kiva. His shy, bookish daughter, Kate, authors her own version of events, focusing on her courtship and marriage to the school teacher, Richard, and culminating in the birth of their child, Grace Elizabeth, named after the previous two generations of Arizona pioneer women. Jack is raised from the kiva just as Grace enters the world, and although Rose believes the Arabian stallion she ran away on was drowned in the flash flood that ended Elder Brother’s Maze, she finds redemption in her adoption by Jack’s family.

Hopi migration myths illuminate The Last Creation, the third book in The Arizona Series. After six years of searching for the runaway, Rose, Guy finally finds her working on the Rawlings’ nearly dismantled cattle ranch near Winslow in northern Arizona. The girl is now a woman still using her adopted name, Jane. Although medication helps her manage her bi-polar symptoms, her first impulse upon seeing Guy is to run. Alternating chapters describe her deteriorating mental state as she camps among the Homolovi ruins on the Little Colorado River; her pursuit by Guy and her adoptive parents, Kate and Richard; and Guy’s adventures in the central Arizona desert six years prior as he struggles to recover the Arabian stallion that Rose had run away on. Despite the hardships each narrative describes, all paths lead home by the end.

Sacred Arrow finds Guy Thornton resurrecting the old Rawlings cattle ranch near Winslow, Arizona into a profitable bison operation and guiding tourists and researchers to the ranch’s trove of ancient petroglyphs when Bane, a White Mountain Apache, abducts the ranch owner’s five-year-old son, Jack. Accounts of Guy’s friendship with Old Trick during their rodeo years and his relationship with a Yavapai woman named Sally are woven through the story of the family’s desperate efforts to rescue young Jack.

People of the Sun follows Guy Thornton’s adventure-packed horseback journey across Arizona’s Mogollon Rim to his claim his young son, Trick, who he’s never met, at a school near Prescott. The life and stories of Trick’s Yavapai mother interweave with the present-time narrative of Trick’s rebellion, and recounts how Star, a Sedona-based life coach and healer, helps Guy reconcile with a suddenly altered future.

Guy Thornton’s dreams for his new ranch on the outskirts of the small, southern Arizona town of Sonoita have hit an impasse: his wife is away in Tucson caring for her ailing father; his Yaqui housekeeper is busy participating in her tribe’s 40-day Lenten observances; and JC, the troubled teenager entrusted to him, has gone missing. When Guy’s son, Trick, rides out to investigate, he encounters the unknowable worlds of the Surem, the ancient Yaqui spirits who trouble and assist lost travelers, and returns bloodied, confused, and empty-handed. So Jasmine, Trick’s former classmate, tries to help Guy locate JC. Their search leads them into the dangerous world of drug traffickers along the Mexican border.

Most of Guy Thornton’s family is thriving on their ranch in southern Arizona, but Samson the mule has grown old and his caretaker, Jasmine, has been struggling with depression since her mother’s recent death. Star insists Guy take them to a Mojave Ghost Doctor living on the Colorado River near Parker where Guy’s son Trick is starting his career as a large animal vet. The old Mojave man’s “cure” involves the family in a mind-bending journey along the Colorado River and a nearly-deadly encounter with his vengeful son and his friends.

Guy’s adventures come to a close in the final installment of the Arizona Series!

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