More than three hundred Latter-day Saint settlements were founded by LDS Church President Brigham Young. Colonization-often outside of Utah-continued under the next three LDS Church presidents, fueled by Utah's overpopulation relative to its arable, productive land. In this book, John Gary Maxwell takes a detailed look at the Bighorn Basin colonization of 1900-1901, placing it in the political and socioeconomic climate of the time while examining whether the move to this out-of-the-way frontier was motivated in part by the desire to practice polygamy unnoticed. The LDS Church officially abandoned polygamy in 1890, but evidence that the practice was still tolerated (if not officially sanctioned) by the church circulated widely, resulting in intense investigations by the U.S. Senate. In 1896 Abraham Owen Woodruff, a rising star in LDS leadership and an ardent believer in polygamy, was appointed to head the LDS Colonization Company. Maxwell explores whether under Woodruff's leadership the Bighorn Basin colony was intended as a means to insure the secret survival of polygamy and if his untimely death in 1904, together with the excommunication of two equally dedicated proponents of polygamy-Apostles John Whitaker Taylor and Matthias Foss Cowley-led to its collapse. Maxwell also details how Mormon settlers in Wyoming struggled with finance, irrigation, and farming and how they brought the same violence to indigenous peoples over land and other rights as did non-Mormons. The 1900 Bighorn Basin colonization provides an early twentieth-century example of a Mormon syndicate operating at the intersection of religious conformity, polygamy, nepotism, kinship, corporate business ventures, wealth, and high priesthood status. Maxwell offers evidence that although in many ways the Bighorn Basin colonization failed, Owen Woodruff's prophecy remains unbroken: "No year will ever pass, from now until the coming of the Savior, when children will not be born in plural marriage.

The most addictive, deliciously dark and redemptive psychological thriller you've been waiting for in 2021 - for fans of Lisa Jewell, Louise Jensen, Phoebe Morgan, CL Taylor, Cara Hunter and KL Slater... ************** Blue grew up in the Black House. In remotest Wales, Joseph Carillo recruited young, lonely women to join his community and adopt his erratic views. Blue's mother was one of them. But when the Black House goes up in flames, Blue escapes to freedom and never stops running. Twenty years later, when Blue's old dormmate commits suicide, Blue receives a strange call. She has been awarded sole custody of Natasha's daughter. But things don't add up. The girls haven't spoken since the night of the fire. As Blue begins to dig into Natasha's life, her suspicions take her all the way back to that fateful night...But will the truth help Blue to face her past, or will it put everyone she holds close in danger? ************** Praise for NJ MACKAY: 'Dark, gripping, unexpected. Insanely good - like, Dark Places good' ELLE CROFT 'Brilliantly plotted, tense and atmospheric' RACHAEL BLOK 'Grips you from the first line through to the nail-biting conclusion. Psychological suspense at its best' VICTORIA SELMAN 'Clever, unexpected, brilliantly plotted; I literally could not put it down' CLARE EMPSON