Author Talk with Canyon Hohenstein

Country Bookshelf is excited to welcome local author Canyon Hohenstein, author of the novel , on August 13 at 6pm.

The event at a glance:

• On August 13, please arrive early to secure your seat. Seating is general admission, first come, first served.
• At 6pm, the event will begin. The author will take audience questions following the program.
• After the talk, the author will sign books.
• Can't attend in person? Order signed copies on our website or by calling (406) 587-0166. Signing requests must be placed 24 hours before the event and can only be taken for books we currently have on our shelves.

About Who Tames the Flames

Fire has shaped Gully's entire existence — his father died in the Yellowstone Fires of '88, leaving behind a heavy legacy. Now, he is once again thrown into the flames, leading a group of criminal outcasts.

Through burnouts, bucket drops, and blistering heat, Gully gets to know the convict crew as the complex individuals they are. But what he doesn't see is the thread binding this crew and the mysterious shadow surrounding his father's death.

A wildfire does not just destroy — it reveals. And Gully will painfully discover this shadow was cast by those who used their internal blaze to incinerate another.

About the Author

Canyon Hohenstein was born and raised in Montana, where he spent seven seasons working as a wildland firefighter. The defining moment of his career came when he was assigned to lead a 20-man inmate fire crew — 17 incarcerated men and three Pr*son guards from the Montana State Pr*son — as they fought to contain a wildfire deep in the Swan Valley.

What began as an assignment became a reckoning. Eight months later, Canyon sat down to look up the crimes of the men he'd worked beside. What he found staggered him. Several were convicted of serious violent crimes. One had a life sentence. And yet, on the fireline, he'd known them as kind, hard-working, and deeply human.

That contradiction — can you admire someone who has done terrible things? — became the engine of Who Tames the Flames? It's a question Canyon is still answering.

After making the difficult decision to end his firefighting career before it ended him, Canyon turned his focus entirely to writing. He holds a degree in Political Science from the University of Montana, has done HIV testing in Uganda, was mugged in Nairobi, and now splits his time between Belgrade, Montana and Madrid, Spain.

He also publishes “The Burn Scars We Bear “— a newsletter offering dispatches on redemption, endurance, and courage for a burning world.