2021 International Afro-American Historical & Genealogical Society Book Award for Historical Fiction in Event/Era

2021 Finalist for the Will Rogers Medallion Award in Western Fiction

2021 Finalist for the Peacemaker Awards in Best First Novel

2021 Finalist for the Indie Book Awards in Historical Fiction

2021 Finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award in Fiction from the Oklahoma Center for the Book

2021 Spur Award Finalist for Historical Novel from the Western Writers of America

2020 Arkansas Gem from the Arkansas Center for the Book

Follow the Angels, Follow the Doves is an origin story in the true American tradition. Before Bass Reeves could stake his claim as the most successful nineteenth-century American lawman, arresting more outlaws than any other deputy during his thirty-two-year career as a deputy U.S. marshal in some of the most dangerous regions of the Wild West, he was a slave.

After a childhood picking cotton, Reeves became an expert marksman under his master's tutelage, winning shooting contests throughout the region. His skill had serious implications, however, as the Civil War broke out. Reeves was given to his master's mercurial, sadistic, Moby-Dick-quoting son in the hopes that Reeves would keep him safe in battle. The ensuing humiliation, love, heroics, war, mind games, and fear solidified Reeves's determination to gain his freedom and drew him one step further on his fated path to an illustrious career.

Follow the Angels, Follow the Doves is an important historical work that places Reeves in the pantheon of American heroes and a thrilling historical novel that narrates a great man's exploits amid the near-mythic world of the nineteenth-century frontier.

Sidney Thompson teaches creative writing and African American literature at Texas Christian University. He is the author of You/Wee: Poems from a Father and Sideshow: Stories. Thompson has published his short fiction in numerous literary journals and anthologies.