Tumbleweeds Burning a Novel

Book excerpt: Heinrich and Anna Marie Oster are invited by the Czar to move to Russia. Their excitement runs high when a son of their family is selected to serve in the Czar's elite body guard, the Imperial Hussars, and life is good. Life next to the Royals is full of thrills and color, but before long the corruption and greed in high places are exposed, and soon bitter persecution of the family makes their days difficult. Their children flee to America and accept the government's offer of free homestead acres on the great prairies of the heartland. The free land, however, extracts a heavy price. As they wrestle their sod house out of the stubborn buffalo grasses, they discover that their new "palace on the prairies" is only three miles from the Native sons of the warriors who scalped George Armstrong Custer. It leaves their days uneasy, their nights uncertain. At every turn, Nature confronts them with immense battles, from killing blizzards and sweeping fires, to plagues of grasshoppers. From years of deathdealing drought where nothing grows but tumbleweeds and biting flies, to international conflicts that drastically change their lives. Through it all they come together in faith and turn their little spot of earth into the breadbasket of the world.