The impetus for this book came during a drive across the western states of America in 2012, and in particular a visit to the museum at Independence, Missouri. There I purchased a copy of Desperate Passage by Ethan Rarick, which charted the whole story of the Donner Party in 1846. The idea came to me of writing an imagined account of what happened to those in the original wagon train who stayed on the tried and tested trail to Oregon, instead of risking an unknown cut-off down to California.
There are a few real people here: Francis Parkman, who wrote The Oregon Trail in the 1840s, for example. And Virginia Reed herself, whose account of the Donner Party’s disaster is pivotal. There were two brothers in the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804-5 named Fields, whose later lives remain obscure.
Several books and websites helped with the historical background, as well as the geography. Seven Alone by Honoré Morrow; The American West by David Lavender; Soiled Doves by Anne Seagraves are the most noteworthy.