Peter Q. Doyle

6 booksChild BooksAdventureFantasy

Peter Q. Doyle writes historical fiction about the Spanish gold legends of the Southwest and the Mormon frontier — the country between Santa Fe and the Uinta Mountains, roughly 1637 to 1857. He grew up in the Salt Lake Valley on stories of the Lost Rhoades Mine: a gold source somewhere in the Uintas, supposedly shown to Mormon settlers by the Utes, supposedly sealed, supposedly still there. He read a book about it as a boy and never entirely put it down. He has laid brick for a living most of his adult life. He came to writing late, and came to it because he couldn't stop thinking about this history — the documented parts, the folklore, and the wide gap between them where fiction does its work. Two series are underway. The Sons of Dan follows the Danites out of Missouri and into the Utah Territory, and asks what becomes of an oath sworn for protection once the danger passes. Veins of Fire goes back further, to 1698, and a Spanish cartographer's son who learns what his maps are actually for. He lives in the Inland Northwest.

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Books

Pip Cobblepot and the Keystone Enigma

An apprentice builder must solve ancient architectural secrets before his subterranean world crumbles

Child Books
Adventure
Fantasy

Twelve-year-old Pip Cobblepot can hear the stone speak. Deep beneath the earth in the bustling metropolis of Cobblegate, Pip is just an apprentice builder. But when he detects microscopic fractures and ominous stress harmonics reverberating through the city's ancient vaulted ceilings, he realizes a catastrophic collapse is imminent. The corrupt Grand Guildmaster refuses to listen, eager to protect municipal profits over public safety. Exiled from the builder's guild for speaking out, Pip joins forces with a ragtag crew of outcasts: an eccentric disgraced master architect, a brilliant mortar chemist, a fearless tunnel-runner, and a clever young archivist. Together, they delve into forgotten subterranean test chambers to recover the legendary Codex of the First Architects. Dodging lethal mechanical counterweight traps and navigating flooded vaults, Pip must apply real engineering principles, balance opposing forces, and reset the massive Master Keystone before Cobblegate is crushed under its own weight. A thrilling underground fantasy packed with ingenious puzzles, heart-pounding action, and the power of science.

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Pip and the Keystone Enigma

Cracking ancient stone puzzles to save an underground metropolis from total collapse

Child Books
Fantasy
Adventure

Deep beneath the earth, the magnificent city of Cobblegate is trembling. Twelve-year-old apprentice stonecutter Pip Cobblepot has a secret: he can hear stressed stone singing right before it snaps. When ominous tremors send spiderweb fractures through the Great Aqueduct, Pip knows the subterranean city’s days are numbered. The guild leaders refuse to listen, leaving Pip with only one unlikely ally: Barnaby Brickell, a brilliant but exiled master builder gnome. To prevent a catastrophic cave-in, Pip and Barnaby must locate the lost Codex of the First Architects—a legendary blueprint repository hidden in the treacherous under-vaults. Joined by a fearless crew of young allies, they plunge into a mechanical labyrinth of sliding basalt grids, water-pressure traps, and interlocking architectural riddles. With corrupt rivals trying to bury the truth and seismic shocks threatening to burst the reservoir gates, Pip must master ancient engineering logic to reset the city's central keystone before everything comes crashing down.

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The Sons of Dan — Book Two: The Prayer Circle

Faith, blood, and the shadows of a vigilante past in the Utah Territory

Historical Fiction
Thriller

The desert heat hides a cold-blooded secret. Ten years after his family fled the violence of Missouri, Isaac Allred believes he has finally found a home in the rugged Utah Territory. Seeking to protect his community, he joins the Minute Men, a territorial militia he believes represents the height of pioneer honor. Under the mentorship of the charismatic Elder Elias Kimball, Isaac feels he is finally serving a divine purpose. But the shadows of the past have long reach. Eliza Cord, a quiet courier for the militia, sees what others miss. While carrying coded messages across the frontier, she begins to catalog a series of chilling irregularities—orders that look less like defense and more like targeted execution. As she maintains a secret ledger of these hidden truths, she realizes the 'Sons of Dan' did not die in Missouri; they simply moved west. When a California-bound wagon train enters the territory during a time of intense war fever, the mechanisms of a secret, corrupt organization begin to turn. Isaac and Eliza find themselves caught in a web of shifting loyalties and ancient grudges. To save the future, they must expose the rot hidden within their faith before the desert sand drinks more blood. In the second installment of The Far West Chronicles, the silence of a generation is finally broken.

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weaver of red veins

An epic frontier thriller where maps are weapons and secrets are buried in blood.

Adventure
Thriller
Historical Fiction

The mountains of the American frontier do not forgive, and they never forget. In 1698, seventeen-year-old Mateo Valerio enters the uncharted Sangre de Cristo range with a single goal: to prove himself to his father, Spain’s most legendary cartographer. But as Mateo traces the jagged peaks of the northern frontier, he realizes his quills and parchment are being used for something far more sinister than geography. Every line he draws is a roadmap for a conquest that could ignite a continent. Watching from the shadows is Tuvi, a Ute scout sworn to protect her people’s ancestral secrets. She knows that while soldiers are a temporary threat, a mapmaker’s work is permanent. To stop the expedition, she must first neutralize the boy who sees too much. As the air grows thin and the trail grows bloody, Mateo and Tuvi find themselves trapped between a ruthless captain’s obsession and a hidden power older than the Crown itself. Someone in the camp is a murderer. Someone in the mountains is a guardian. And the legendary 'Veins of Fire' they seek are not the gold they expected, but a truth that could bring empires to their knees. In a land where the terrain is the deadliest enemy, Mateo must decide if the map is worth the lives it will cost—or if some places were meant to remain lost forever.

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The Destroying Angels

When the shield becomes the sword, the faithful become the fallen in Missouri.

Thriller
Historical Fiction

Missouri, 1833. Jacob Allred is a man who knows the cost of war. After his community is driven from their homes by a lawless mob, Jacob is done turning the other cheek. He seeks only to protect his family and the land they were promised. Enter Sampson Avard, a charismatic physician with a vision for a secret defense society. At first, it feels like salvation—a brotherhood bound by oath to ensure no settler is ever hunted again. But as the 'Destroying Angels' grow in power, the line between protection and persecution begins to blur. Jacob, disciplined and loyal, finds himself trapped within a structure that is slowly turning its blades inward. While Jacob is blinded by duty, Rebecca sees the rot from the outside. She witnesses the hushed threats and the chilling transformation of a righteous impulse into a weapon of tyranny. As the state of Missouri descends into open conflict, Jacob and Rebecca must forge a dangerous alliance to expose the man who has hijacked their faith for his own ambition. In this high-stakes historical thriller, the most dangerous enemy isn't the mob at the gate—it's the brother standing beside you. Based on the true events of the Missouri Mormon War, Peter Q. Doyle delivers a blistering tale of power, betrayal, and the enduring spark of conscience.

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VEINS OF FIRE

A haunting epic of colonial greed, sacred lands, and the map that could destroy them all

Historical Fiction
Western
Literary Fiction

In the untamed wilderness of 1698, the Spanish Crown hunts for a myth. Young Mateo Valerio, a cartographer’s son, joins a secret expedition into the treacherous Uinta Mountains, led by men whose hunger for gold outweighs their humanity. As the expedition pushes deeper into uncharted territory, Mateo witnesses the brutal cost of empire. When his father dies leaving behind a warning and a secret, Mateo finds himself caught between the ruthless Captain Salazar and the indigenous people who have guarded the mountain's secrets for generations. What begins as a quest for wealth transforms into a desperate struggle for survival and moral clarity. From the forced labor of the mines to a daring escape through a lethal winter storm, Mateo must decide if he will be the hand that maps the destruction of a people or the one who erases the path to the 'Vein of Fire' forever. Spanning generations from the Spanish frontier to the rise of the Mormon trail, Peter Q Doyle delivers a sweeping historical masterpiece about the weight of gold, the power of silence, and a land that refuses to be tamed. Some treasures are better left in the dark, and some maps are meant to be burned.

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