Proving Her Claim

From a two-time Spur Award-winning author – the highest honor in American frontier fiction – comes the story of Anna Olson, a Civil War spinster. With no prospects for marriage and family, Anna pins her future on the frontier and heads west to stake a claim on the wide-open prairies of the Dakota frontier.

“Most women go from their father’s house to their husband’s house,” Anna said. “Here, I have my own house. I am my own person.”

But the Dakota Plains are not empty.

Anna’s new life collides with Two Hawks MacKenzie, the son of a Scots fur trapper and a Lakota woman. Together, they forge a bond that could connect their two worlds – despite prejudice and intolerance they encounter.

CK Van Dam is a daughter of the Dakota prairies. With degrees in History and Journalism from South Dakota State University, she has embarked on a second career to create stories about the strong women who have built our nation and our world. Proving Her Claim is CK Van Dam's debut novel. She is currently working on the story of another pioneer woman in Dakota Territory