Southern
Novelist
and
Storyteller
What’s New
Fall is upon us, and with 2025 winding down Jeffrey W. Massey is nearing completion of his fourth novel, a tale of historical fiction entitled Reata. This novel will be of great interest to all readers who love the combination of history and compelling drama. Reata will be available during the Spring 2026.
The story follows the protagonist of the same name, a Frenchman by ancestry who becomes embroiled in the Seminole War of 1817-18. After the warring Red Stick Indians were defeated at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend (1814), many of the survivors relocated in Spanish Florida, along the lower Chattahoochee River Valley. These natives did not give up the fight for their homeland and continued to attack settlers on the southern frontier.
Reata follows the aftermath of the famous Scott Massacre, where a large force of Seminole and Red Stick warriors attacked a U.S. Army supply vessel traveling up the Apalachicola River. While Jean Louis “Reata” Breneaux is enlisted to help the U.S. Army in subduing the Red Sticks and Seminoles, his primary objective is the recovery of an American woman held prisoner. The book is loosely based on the story of Elizabeth Stewart, who was captured after the Scott Massacre and held prisoner by hostile Indians until the U.S. Army was able to free her.
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