Marcus King is so good at the game of football that it seems like he was born to play the game, and he does not realize the extent to which this is true. It is only when he attends the ceremonies celebrating the Heisman Trophy finalists that his unbroken dreams of the promise of success begin to unravel.

A sportswriter hints that his foster father, a man who rescued him from an orphanage in Moscow where his immigrant parents died, and a famed quarterback coach who tutored him to become a world class athlete, might have a dark hidden past. Then as Marcus is about to turn pro, he begins to experience an historic identity crisis when his investigation to decipher his own murky beginnings reveal that he is not who he’s been told he was.

What follows is a tale that blends science fiction and science fact, geopolitical intrigue, espionage, and deep psychological crisis coupled with courageous response, all tied together with thrilling narratives about the often beautiful and constantly violent sport that has captured the American imagination. Promised Land is not like any sports story you have ever read.

Xander and Damien Holt are brothers with at least one thing in common. They are deeply involved with The Ice Bears. Xander is a failed minor league baseball player who has found new life as a hockey goalie for the Riverine State University Bears, and the hockey team is nicknamed the Ice Bears.

Damien is a wildlife biologist who has gone to serve a one year apprenticeship under the tutelage of a hardy and dedicated bear biologist in the frozen Arctic. There he will help to study and document the life cycles of the earth’s largest land predator, the polar bears who have managed to survive for thousands of years in one of the most dangerous and demanding environments on the planet. He and Professor Spencer must brave the harsh conditions of the frozen seas in winter to fully understand the Ice Bears in a largely hidden world that teems with the drama of life, death, and regeneration. And it is a world that is dramatically threatened by runaway climate change.

Xander has dramas of his own to contend with for he has been asked by his coach to mentor a talented transfer who is trying to recover world class skills that have faded due to years of psychological battering from his father. And to further complicate matters, Xander befriends a goalie on the women’s team who seems a sure bet to make the Olympic team, and he is smitten with her, but she has psychological barriers of her own to overcome due to a painful failed romance. The brothers meet the stringent demands of their callings with courage and a dedicated work ethic while experiencing a series of adventures that test their mettle, and the real Ice Bears have even more dramatic adventures of their own on the frozen Arctic seas that are disappearing far too rapidly for the prospects of their kind.