THEY CHASED FREEDOM. PERIL, ROMANCE AND HEARTBREAK CAME ALONG FOR THE RIDE.

Throwing off the chains of Tsarist Russia, a father and son pursue a dream of personal liberation and a humanitarian vision in a series of struggles that play out against the raw canvas of ambition, amorality and racism that was the California Gold Rush.

It's the mid-1800s. Stepan Kenin is a war hero and revolutionary exiled by the Tsar to a colony clinging to the coast of Northern California. His break for freedom leads to a reunion with his son Dmitri twenty-five years in the making. But freedom, they learn all too soon, demands sacrifice. Dmitri battles corruption in San Francisco and lawlessness in the gold mines of the Sierra foothills while finding love with a woman whose secret could destroy their hopes for a measure of peace and happiness.

Ray M. Schultze's Russian River is a torrent of historical fiction, alive with memorable characters amid vivid settings.