A Better Place: Originally Published as Dark Canyons

Though only twelve years old and without a day A NOVEL

spent in a classroom, June is just as comfortable

reading and thinking deeply as she is hunting

game and chopping wood. Thanks to her rustic

but joyful life in the Blue Mountains of Washington

State, June is growing into a young woman who

combines the best traits of her scholarly mother

and her practical father.

But when welfare workers and government

officials threaten to take June away from her

parents, her idyllic childhood is thrown into

dangerous turmoil. To defend their way of life,

June and her father must run. They escape into

the mountains on horseback with nothing to

protect them but her agile mind and survivalist

skills. Will everything June's parents taught her

be enough to outrun the danger? Or will she be

taken away from the only home and family she's

ever known?