NYC Big Book Award (Distinguished Favorite 2023)
Book Excellence Awards (Historical Fiction Winner 2022)

Maincrest Media Book Award (Mainstream Winner 2021)
Shelf Unbound Best Indie Book Award (Top 100 Notable 2016)

Historical Novel Society (Editor's Choice 2015)

Best Indie Book Award (Literary/Mainstream Winner 2013)


"A stunning novel and a joy to read" Helen Hollick, Managing Editor
- Historical Novel Society

The first recorded Europeans to cross the Mississippi River reached the western shore on June 18, 1541. Hernando De Soto and his army of three hundred and fifty conquistadors spent the next year and a half conquering the nations in the fertile flood plains of eastern Arkansas.

Three surviving sixteenth-century journals written during the expedition detailed a complex array of twelve different nations. Each had separate beliefs, languages, and interconnected villages with capital towns comparable in size to European cities of the time. Through these densely populated sites, the Spanish carried a host of deadly old-world diseases, a powerful new religion, and war.

No other Europeans ventured into this land until French explorers arrived one hundred and thirty years later. They found nothing of the people or the towns that the Spanish had so vividly described. For those lost nations, the only hope that their stories, their last remaining essence will ever be heard again lies with one unlikely Storykeeper.

~~~
Editorial Reviews for Storykeeper

"Though packed with relevant historical details, Smith manages to give priority to the story and also to creating authentic and relatable characters. Besides the vitality of the world and characters, what is most impressive about this book is its structure and the way the author seamlessly weaves together three narratives." - BookLife Prize in Fiction

"There's an epic-ness to the scale of the sprawling, massive, historically-based story being told here." - Book Pipeline

"Impressive in its confrontation of the truth, and intricate description, Storykeeper allows the voices of the past to permeate the present, with echoes of history and survival" - Maincrest Media Award

"In alternating chapters, three narratives unwind: the conquest Taninto witnesses, the flight Nanza endures, and the remembrances Manaha struggles to share. In the process, the history of a nearly forgotten people is imagined, or reimagined. . . . A glimpse into a culture until now kept solely in the prison of the past." - Kirkus Reviews

"It takes a master artist to create a picture of such perfect detail that it looks like a photograph. Smith paints this amazing picture with words, and indeed is himself a storykeeper. To translate a culture that is unfamiliar with such accuracy and poetry is a great achievement." Helen Hollick, Managing Editor - Historical Novel Society (Editor's Choice)

"A saga of revenge, bribery, political bargaining, death and disease, it's a novel that's surprisingly succinct for its subject, rich in its detail, and highly recommended for historical fiction readers who want so much more than a casual pursuit." D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer - Midwest Book Review

"The book's images, enhanced by objective historical writing are portals into the distant past, sometimes humorous, often heartbreaking, but always illuminating." Fred Petrucelli - Log Cabin