A Cord of Three Strands

2022 Historical Fiction Company Book of the Year semi-finalist
2021 American Fiction Awards winner
2021 International Book Awards finalist

Born to a French trader and a Lenape woman. Reared by Quakers. As the French & Indian War rages, one man strives for peace—between Pennsylvania and its Indian tribes, and between his own heart and mind.

As 1756 dawns, Isaac Lukens leaves the Pennsylvania wilderness after two years with the Lenape people. He’s failed to find the families of his birth parents, a French trader and a Lenape woman. Worse, the tribe he’s lived with, having rejected his peacemaking efforts, now ravages frontier settlements in retaliation. When he arrives in the Quaker community where he was reared, questions taunt him: Who is he—white man or Lenape? And where does he belong?

Elisabeth Alden, Isaac’s dearest childhood friend, is left to tend her young siblings alone upon her father’s death. Despite Isaac’s promise to care for her and the children, she battles resentment toward him for having left, while an unspeakable tragedy and her discordant courtship with a prominent Philadelphian weigh on her as well.

Elisabeth must marry or lose guardianship of her siblings, and her options threaten the life with her and the children that Isaac has come to love. Faced with Elisabeth’s hesitancy to marry, the prospect of finding his family at last, and the opportunity to assist in the peace process between Pennsylvania and its Indian tribes, Isaac must determine where—and with whom—he belongs.

A Cord of Three Strands weaves fact and fiction into a captivating portrayal of Colonial-era Quaker life, including the Society of Friends’ roles in Pennsylvania Indian relations and in refuting slavery.

For as long as she can remember, Christy Distler has dreamed her most vivid dreams with her eyes wide open. Names became people--people who didn't exist in this time and place but couldn't have been more real in her heart and mind. So she did the only rational thing: gave them a voice by writing fiction. Christy's novels, whether historical or contemporary, delve into betrayal and reconciliation, faith and grace, and always involve the intertwining of cultures. When not writing, she works as an editor for publishing houses and independent authors. Obsession with words (and history) aside, she lives with her husband, children, and dogs in Pennsylvania.