Only the Brave Books in Order

Under the umbrella sometimes called the San Juan Pioneers novels, The Undaunted, Only the Brave and To Soar with Eagles follow Latter-day Saint settlers who were called to carve a community out of the wild canyons and deserts of southeastern Utah.

The story begins with the almost unbelievable Hole in the Rock expedition, where families haul wagons down a sheer sandstone crack to reach the San Juan River. Lund mixes real journals and historical figures with fictional characters, so readers feel both the scale of the journey and the small, daily sacrifices it demanded.

By the time Only the Brave opens, the initial trek is behind them, but the hardest work is not. The settlers battle flash floods, drought, isolation and tension with neighboring ranchers and Native peoples as they try to turn a rough river crossing into a lasting town.

At the center are people like Mitch Westland and Edie Zimmer, young Latter-day Saints who want very normal things, a home, a herd, a chance to raise children in peace, but who are repeatedly pushed to the edge of what they can endure. Their story continues in To Soar with Eagles, where the focus widens to include new generations and changing times.

These books are as interested in quiet council meetings and church calls as they are in runaway cattle or narrow escapes in the canyon country.

Lund treats the landscape almost like another character. Readers feel the heat on the sand, the cold of a sudden storm at a river crossing and the strain of driving a team over slickrock that was never meant to hold a wagon. Through it all, questions of faith, leadership and community trust run just beneath the surface.

Later volumes connect this isolated corner of Utah to the wider world through ties to the Fire and Steel series, reminding readers that small frontier choices can ripple forward into global events. The result is a grounded, human look at what it meant to answer a prophetic call and stay put when leaving would have been much easier.