Christy Distler

A Cord of Three Strands Christy Distler

2021 American Fiction Awards Winner

2021 International Book Awards Finalist




Born to a French trader and a Lenape woman. Reared by Quakers. As the French & Indian War rages, one man strives for peace-between Pennsylvania and its Indian tribes, and between his own heart and mind.




As 1756 dawns, Isaac Lukens leaves the Pennsylvania wilderness after two years with the Lenape people. He's failed to find the families of his birth parents, a French trader and a Lenape woman. Worse, the tribe he's lived with, having rejected his peacemaking efforts, now ravages frontier settlements in retaliation. When he arrives in the Quaker community where he was reared, questions taunt him: Who is he-white man or Lenape? And where does he belong?




Elisabeth Alden, Isaac's dearest childhood friend, is left to tend her young siblings alone upon her father's death. Despite Isaac's promise to care for her and the children, she battles resentment toward him for having left, while an unspeakable tragedy and her discordant courtship with a prominent Philadelphian weigh on her as well.




Elisabeth must marry or lose guardianship of her siblings, and her options threaten the life with her and the children that Isaac has come to love. Faced with Elisabeth's hesitancy to marry, the prospect of finding his family at last, and the opportunity to assist in the peace process between Pennsylvania and its Indian tribes, Isaac must determine where-and with whom-he belongs.




A Cord of Three Strands weaves fact and fiction into a captivating portrayal of Colonial-era Quaker life, including Friends' roles in Pennsylvania Indian relations and in refuting slavery.