News Release

Dr. Chris Jefferies is the author of the fascinating and exciting new series of LDS history-based novels, Zion’s Promise.  The first two, The Quest Begins, and Will Mercy Rob Justice? are being received with great interest by readers who enjoy novels set in the LDS pioneer era.  Although a work of fiction, Jefferies assures readers they are historically accurate.  “I didn’t know whether to categorize the books as fiction with a little history, or history with a little fiction.  I settled by calling it history-based fiction, with emphasis on history, because the novel is based on real characters and actual events,” he said.

Using his great-great-grandfather’s emigration journal as the first volume’s basis, Jefferies sets the novel in 1861 during the middle-period of LDS emigration.  “I’ve always been enthralled by that period of history,” he says.  “Here we have thousands of Mormon emigrants, including many of my own ancestors, struggling to come to Zion, their treks intersecting the crosscurrents of an emerging Civil War, a growing American westward expansion, and Brigham Young’s systematic colonization of Utah Territory’s wild frontier,” he continues.  “It’s an exciting, tumultuous, and historically-momentous period of time, filled with fascinating and colorful characters you’ll meet in my books.  I just felt compelled to write about it.”

He believes his novels also contribute to a better understanding of this particular Pioneer era.  “A lot has been written about the exodus periods from Nauvoo to the Salt Lake Valley,” he says, “but not a lot has been written about the subsequent emigrations.  For example, I’ve seen very little written about the eventful and often hazardous railroad train and riverboat journey from New York to outfitting locations like Florence, Nebraska Territory.  The train journey itself was full of adventure.  And, how about life in Florence while the Saints gathered and made preparations for the wagon trip?  In many respects, Florence was a ‘mini-Zion.’  The Quest Begins dramatizes both those events.”

Jefferies is a direct descendent of twelve great-great-grandparents who emigrated to Utah between 1847 and 1862.  “Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t escape my heritage.  It’s in my blood.”  His roots are deep in Utah’s history and heritage, but he was born and raised in California.  “I spent a lot of summers in Grantsville, though.  It’s the town in which my ancestors settled.  I have many fond memories of those times, and even yet consider Grantsville the closest I have to a home town.”  

Although this is his first work of fiction, Dr. Jefferies is an accomplished writer published in many professional journals over 30 years.  He served 32 years in uniform and retired in 1992 as an Air Force Colonel.  He recently retired as the Director of the Chisholm Trail Heritage Center in Duncan, Oklahoma, a museum devoted to America’s Great Cattle-Drive Era, another fascinating period of history.  Jefferies holds a bachelor’s degree from Brigham Young University, a master’s from the University of Pittsburgh, and a doctorate from the University of Oklahoma.