ZEPHYR TRAILS

Ehrlich’s novel traces a teenage girl’s travels Westward during the Civil War.

Seven months after Abraham Lincoln’s death, 16-year-old Tennessean Ellis Cady finds herself at her aunt and uncle’s Missouri ranch trying to find her father. After her beloved twin brother, Earl, was killed in the war, and her mother, family, and friends can’t be found, Ellis is adrift. Although appreciative of the ranch she can call home, Ellis flounders in grief and longs to ride her horse, Ace, on the Western trails instead of working at the ranch. Continuing her search for her father, Ellis, who’s an author, travels with Ace to St. Louis to meet with Lucas Bilford, her great friend, mentor, and editor. In St. Louis, the teen, who has passed as a boy to ride and fight in the war, meets Jimmie and Joe, trick riders of Levi Jack’s Wild West Show, and she considers joining them as a trick rider. A shady businessman hires them to deliver post and packages following the Pony Express’s closure, and they all take on the lucrative, possibly dangerous work. While working delivering packages, Ellis longs to travel Westward to honor her late twin, who’d always wanted to explore new Western territories on horseback. Ehrlich’s novel movingly depicts a family and country devasted by war as well as the difficulties of building a country in a forbidding environment (“The railroads’ll be built, it’ll get easier to get there, but the land—the land will retaliate. You mark my words”). The sensory details, including fireside meals on the trails, add color to the storytelling, and the author succeeds in integrating issues of identity—especially gender and sexuality—into a work that’s timeless. Most of all, this tale provides a nuanced depiction of a unique protagonist’s growth from girlhood to adulthood.

A roving, authentic bildungsroman with a unique lead.