{"product_id":"kings-of-colorado-a-novel-9781439183823","title":"Kings of Colorado: A Novel","description":"\u003cp\u003eA heartfelt portrait of a bygone age.  William Sheppard had never ventured beyond his Chicago neighborhood until  at thirteen  he was sent away to the Swope Ranch Boys Reformatory  hundreds of miles from home  for stabbing his abusive father in the chest with a pocketknife. Buried deep in the Colorado mountains  Swope is shrouded in legend and defined by one prevailing rumor: that the boys who go in never come out the same.  Despite the lack of fences or gates  the boundaries are clear: prisoners are days from civilization  there exists only one accessible roadexcept in the wintertime  when its buried under feet upon feet of snow  and anyone attempting escape will be shot down without hesitation in the shadow of the peaks. At 13 000 feet above sea level  the mountains arent forgiving  and neither are the guards.  With twenty-four months of hard time ahead of him  Will quickly learns to distinguish his allies from his enemies. He also learns about the high price of a childhood lost. At Swope  herds of mustangs are trucked in to be broken by a select group of inmates. Once the horses are gentled  they are sold to ranchers and landowners across the Southwest. Horses come and go  delinquent boys come and go. The boys break the horses  Swope Reformatory breaks the boys. Throughout this ordeal  Will discovers three others who bring him into their inner circle. They are life preservers in a sea of violence and corruption.  But if the boys are to withstand the ranch  they must first overcome tragedy and deatha feat that could haunt them for years to come.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45646973370421,"sku":"ByrdShop_1439183821","price":24.13,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9781439183823.jpg?v=1781684188","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/kings-of-colorado-a-novel-9781439183823","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}