The Tracking Heart

Newton Denman, an updated Natty Bumppo, an intelligent if impulsive woodsman is on the run from a crime he may or may not have committed when he spots Callie Major swimming in a mountain pool. They have not laid eyes on one another since the disaster that tore them apart twenty years ago. Callie, half-Irish and half-Seneca, is a forest ranger who is somewhat absentminded and given to a state of what she terms as near hibernation. Though she is loath to trust Newton, the two are drawn to one another. Newton, however, does not know that Callie is protecting a mysterious bear in the forest or that she is guarding another highly personal secret. As for Callie, she has no idea that Newton is hunting this same, possibly supernatural black bear who is legend in the area, or that he is on the run from a charge of arson and homicide in their hometown. The Tracking Heart is a suspense that is also a hymn to nature. Novelist David Maine writes that in this "backdrop of Pennsylvania's mountain wilderness" is "a love story that manages to be both contemporary and timeless." Margot Livesey, bestselling New York Times author states that The Tracking Heart is a "morally complex and a deeply suspenseful novel."Author BiographyMelissa Croghan's award winning work is published in nationally distributed magazines and she holds a Ph.D in American Literature from the University of Pennsylvania. Of her journey into The Tracking Heart, her debut novel, she explains: "My studies and research in American Literature fueled my interest in tall tales, Native American Creation myths and the 'spirit' bear in The Tracking Heart. A 'what if' situation inspired me when as a single mother I lived in a hunting community outside of Philadelphia. My son had befriended our next door neighbor, a young boy named 'Nature' whose family job was to set animal traps in the nearby forest. One evening I heard a commotion and looked out the window next to my bed. There in the back of a pickup truck owned by Nature's family was a huge and glossy black bear. That night I dreamt of the creature and slept fitfully. The following morning I gave birth (figuratively!) to the triangle of Callie, Newton, and Pete, and perhaps most significantly, the leviathan bear." Writer and artist Melissa Croghan, who lived in Pennsylvania for twenty-three years, presently divides her time between Mackinac Island and Connecticut. She lives with her family and animals at the edge of the woods, and is always on the lookout for the bear.