River Boy

Set along a great American waterway in the late 1880s, River Boy is the story of Clayton Sievers, left orphaned after his parents' deaths. Put in the care of his abusive uncle, Clayt, together with his best friend Ronnie, escapes to seek a new life along the river. But the river holds dangers as well as delights, perils as well as promises. Almost immediately Clayt's world begins to crumble, trouble looms at every turn. All he seeks is the solace of the river and the desire to become the man his father would have wanted him to be. A stroke of fate and fortune provides the chance to experience the adventure and win the prize of which he has dreamed. All he needs to do is retrieve the rumored treasure from the sunken Channel Belle. Lessons about life and living and of growing toward manhood abound. Along his journeys, Clayt will discover he needs more than pluck and gumption; he needs friends like Ronnie, a loving family, and sometimes the kindness of the most unlikely mentors. The kiss of Lady Luck wouldn't hurt either.

"There are exciting escapades, dangers, interesting characters, sentiment and humor in abundance, all essential elements of good adventure writing."
--West Coast Review of Books
"Any comparison to Twain's Huckleberry Finn is fleeting. Clayt is not Huck, and his world is not Huckleberry's. There is greed and violence in Clayt's world just as in Huck's but little burlesque. Clayt as "River Boy" is more aware, more sensitive, more intelligent about his fate than Huck and enlists readers' sympathies more consistently. He is easier to like because he is more conventionally moral than Huck".
--Warren Fine, author of The Artificial Traveler, In the Animal Kingdom, American Confession