Literary Fiction Western

Orphaned after the death of her mother, 18-year-old Esther Chambers heads west in search of her only living relative. In the lawless frontier town of Century, Oregon, she’s met by a sunburnt, laconic cattle wrangler: her distant cousin, Ferris Pickett. Within days, Esther is perjuring herself at the county clerk’s office, swearing that she is 21 and ready for the rigors of homesteading. Pick leads her to a tiny cabin that shows daylight at the chinks, and Esther begins her new life on the small lake called Half-a-Mind.

In Bramble, Texas, Dusty is the law. That means no leniency for the gorgeous rebel whose highway antics almost got them both killed. The divorced lawman doesn't need another rich, pampered princess, even if Brianne has the lushest body and sweetest smile in the whole darn state. But even as Brianne proves that she lives to walk on the wild side, Dusty begins to wonder if maybe he has what it takes to tame her.

Cow Tom, born into slavery in Alabama in 1810 and sold to a Creek Indian chief before his 10th birthday, possessed an extraordinary gift: the ability to master languages. As the new country developed westward, and Indians, settlers, and blacks came into constant contact, Cow Tom became a key translator for his Creek master and was hired out to US military generals.

A dying man, Hank Peyton, tells his son Jerry Peyton that, after a lifetime of evil deeds, his only gift to his son will be his extremely valuable gun called The Voice of La Paloma. When Jerry is wrongfully accused of horse thievery, a cunning sheriff blackmails Jerry into stealing the gun from his father in exchange for a clean slate, even though the sheriff has already found the real horse thief.

Ever since striking it big on a gemstone claim in the Wyoming mountains, Sam Babcock has known luck is on his side - except when it comes to the people he loves. When he forms a surprising connection with an alluring newcomer staying at his friend Wyatt's ranch, Sam starts to question everything he thought he knew. Needing time and space to heal, former daredevil Danny Traveler is camping out in a valley beyond Mustang Ridge Dude Ranch. She wants to take care of herself for once, and a sexy cowboy might be just the distraction she needs.

Recovering from a difficult divorce and having problems with her daughter, Shelby accepts a summer job cooking at a family-run dude ranch. She hopes the animals will be just what her daughter, Lizzie, needs. Little does she know that ranch life will work some healing magic on her, too.

Alive with incident and insight, presenting with rare scope and intimacy the complex relations among nineteenth-century traders, immigrants, and Native Americans, A Sudden Country is, above all, a heroic and unforgettable story of love and loss, sacrifice and understanding.

Zane Grey’s books shoot fast and straight from the hip, hitting readers dead center with thrilling action. His name has become synonymous with western adventure. Because of his killing speed with a revolver, Buck Duane has lived the lone-wolf life of an outlaw. Every day is a struggle against desperate men anxious to prove themselves—and a bigger struggle to hold onto his basic human decency. So when the Texas Rangers offer to deputize him for a dangerous undercover mission, Buck grabs it as his final chance for redemption.

Cash McLendon has always had an instinct for self-preservation, one that was honed by an impoverished childhood and life with an alcoholic father barely scraping by on the streets of Saint Louis in 1872. He’s always had a knack for finding and capitalizing on the slightest opportunities, choosing the path of financial security over happiness or real friends. He eventually builds himself up from a Saint Louis street urchin to the son-in-law and heir apparent to industrial mogul Rupert Douglass. Though it lacks passion, his life seems securely set: a wife, a career, property, standing.

Black Jack Hollis was a daring outlaw before he was shot down. In the wake of his death, it's discovered that Hollis left behind an infant son. Elizabeth Cornish, coowner of the Cornish Ranch alongside her brother, Vance, takes it upon herself to raise the child as her own. Elizabeth names the boy Terry Colby and gives Terry a fictitious aristocratic background, believing the way the boy is raised will determine the man he will become. But Vance is convinced that Terry is destined to become an outlaw himself.

Return to Oakpine spins a story of growing up and growing old as four high school friends and former bandmates reconnect 30 years after graduating. When they learn that one of them is dying, it feels like getting the band back together might be the most important thing they can do.

A rousing, suspenseful debut novel - True Grit meets Catch Me If You Can - based on the forgotten true story of a Robin Hood of the American frontier who pulls off the first successful kidnapping for ransom in US history. Once the most wanted man in America, Pat Crowe is a forgotten folk hero who captivated the nation as an outlaw for economic justice.

Awardwinning author Robert Flynn delivers a witty and thought-provoking novel about a dying Texas town. When the new highway bypasses it, Wanderer Springs is left to wither in the dust. Will Callaghan, back home for a funeral, remembers the town’s sometimes funny, sometimes painful past, includingthe time he cost his high school the football championship. Will’s remembrances show that the present, however chaotic,is always linked to the past.

All Abigail had to still her fears of the unknown were love, and trust in Ross Gallagher, the handsome, reckless Irishman who had snatched her from her New England family to make her his wife. But Abigail was soon to learn how frail even this man's strength and spirit were in the face of the dangers and terrors of the West. As a captive of a Sioux chieftain, Abigail was fated to experience a living hell.

Screenwriter, actor, producer, and award-winning author Andrew J. Fenady knows the Western genre as few do. Destiny Made Them Brothers follows General Ulysses S. Grant, George Armstrong Custer, and Rebel Johnny Yuma, united by fate and friendship. The elusive one of the bunch, Johnny plays a vital role in Grant’s victory for the Union, Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, and Custer’s deadly campaigns in the West.

It’s early summer in Jackson, Wyoming. Former East Coast prosecutor Jake Trent, now a local fishing guide, is wading through a swift current of local politics, introspection, and tragedy. Three seemingly unrelated deaths have occurred in one day - unheard of in the scenic valley. A skier perishes in a freak late-season avalanche. A French couple is discovered mutilated on a remote trail in Grand Teton National Park - presumably by a bear.On the Snake River, Jake himself finds the body of an expensively attired tourist fisherman.

On the top floor of a small hospital, an unlikely piano prodigy lies in a coma, attended to by his gruff, helpless father. Outside the clinic, a motley vigil assembles beneath a reluctant New Mexico winter - strangers in search of answers, a brush with the mystical, or just an escape. To some the boy is a novelty, to others a religion. Just beyond this ragtag circle roams a disconsolate wolf on his nightly rounds, protecting and threatening, learning too much.

A band of kill-crazy outlaws smash the bank in Caliche Bend, New Mexico. And by the fine white powder that covers everything - even the dead - everyone knows The Snowman has struck again: for this notorious bank robber uses bags of flour to stabilize the nitroglycerin used in his dynamite blasts.

Jonathan and Ellen Ware have immigrated to the area from their farm in Illinois with 13-year-old Christy Ware and her two older brothers. The Wares are only one of the families that will soon be caught up in the burning issue of slavery with raids from the Border Ruffians out of Missouri and John Brown's small army devoted to ending slavery and helping runaways to escape to the north.

In Uncompahgre, the number one best-selling, multiple award winning, third novel of the Threads West Series, the time nears when the first of the next generation of Threads West characters will be born of the brave men and courageous women of different origins who have come so far and risked all. The men and women of the saga, having reached their initial destination, pre-Denver, Cherry Creek, are each faced with life-altering decisions.