Literary Fiction Western

Tike and Ella May Hamlin struggle to plant roots in the arid land of the Texas Panhandle. Living in a wooden shack, Tike yearns for a sturdy house that will protect them from the treacherous elements. He has the know-how to build a structure made from the land itself - a house of earth. Though they are one with the farm and with each other, the land on which Tike and Ella May live and work is not theirs. Thanks to larger forces, their adobe house remains painfully out of reach.

Sam Rider is mouthy, bossy, uppity as shit, and I have no choice but to deal with her smart-mouth since she’s my daughter’s teacher. Sam waltzes into our small town on a temporary contract equipped with brochures and more change than a single dad can handle. I never trusted anybody to tell me what to do and I sure as hell won’t start with Sam, ten years younger, a city girl and only in Starlight Canyon for the short haul. I have to watch those sinful pink lips tell me what’s right for three solid months and she won’t stop until I change my mind.

In the lawless, drought-ridden lands of the Arizona Territory in 1893, two extraordinary lives unfold. Nora is an unflinching frontierswoman awaiting the return of the men in her life - her husband, who has gone in search of water for the parched household, and her elder sons, who have vanished after an explosive argument. Nora is biding her time with her youngest son, who is convinced that a mysterious beast is stalking the land around their home.

Matt Hurst seeks justice when a sheriff's posse kills his father and brothers.

New York Times best-selling author Jennifer Chiaverini’s beloved Elm Creek Quilts series here takes listeners back to the Civil War for a powerful tale of husbands, wives, and a nation torn apart. Fervent abolitionism rules the day in 1862 Water’s Ford, Pennsylvania. So when the local men answer Mr. Lincoln’s call to arms, wives are left behind to keep the town functioning. Fortunately, the ladies of Elm Creek Valley have an ingenious plan.

Chase Benteen Calder was bound to wrest a fortune from Montana land, where the whisper of riches swept across a sea of buffalo grass. With Lorna at his side, a woman who took the tough ways of the land as her destiny, he would breathe life into his dream. Through the treacherous Texas prairie, the perils of Indian country, and a bustling Dodge City, they forged their way to Montana. With Calder strength, they would harvest their fortune from the rich earth, on the sprawling plains of This Calder Range.

Part of Ivan Doig’s acclaimed Montana trilogy, English Creek revolves around Jick McCaskill, a 14-year-old growing up in 1930s Montana. This incandescent coming-of-age tale dramatizes the climatic events of one summer that inevitably mark Jick’s awakening from childhood to adulthood.

Spur Award finalist Henry Chappell writes compelling historical novels set in the Old West. In Blood Kin, he tells the story of Isaac Webb, a Texas Ranger caught up in the conflicts surrounding the fledgling Texas Republic. Tensions between the Texans and Comanches begin to mount, and Isaac is sent to negotiate a peace treaty. But, his efforts are hampered by threats of violence and bloodshed.

After a prostitute is murdered at the Easy Nickel saloon, Texas Ranger Josiah Wolfe finds his best friend, Scrap Elliot, in jail and wrongly accused. A strangely familiar horse and a mysterious code are the only clues Josiah has to prove his friend's innocence and save him from execution. Once a Yankee reporter gets involved, Josiah is led to Blanche Dumont's House of Pleasures, where he learns of a thieving, jail-broken accountant with strange ties to both the Easy Nickel and the town's wealthiest banker. With a new railroad line blazing into town, everyone - especially the arrogant young sheriff - is determined to clean up Austin.

After a tragic accident leaves Delta sergeant Connor Flynn a widower, he faces the toughest fight of his life: battling his in-laws for custody of his two young children. To win he'll need a make-believe bride to take care of the kids while he runs his Wyoming ranch. Who better than a woman he already knows and likes - his late wife's best friend?

With Shavetail, Cobb delivers a masterly tale of a young man’s initiation into the brutality of conflict. When 17-year-old runaway Ned Thorne joins Captain Robert Franklin at the Camp Grant outpost, located at the edge of Arizona’s Chiricahua mountains, he enters into a world of blood and redemption. Franklin, still reeling from a failed campaign, seizes on the chance to make amends when a nearby farmhouse is raided—and a woman kidnapped—by renegade Apaches.

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.

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.

Whirlwind, the twin brother of Stone, disappears during a raid into northeastern New Spain. So Stone brings together Cheyenne, Kiowa, and Gataka warriors to go after his missing brother - but there are many things between earth and sky that oppose his quest.

The Saturday Review of Literature proclaims The Edge of Time is "a fundamentally honest and literate telling of one of the lesser-known chapters in the American saga." Revered by readers for over 50 years, Loula Grace Erdman tells the story of a young couple settling in the Texas Panhandle in the 1800s.

Percy York Goodnight, or Pyg as he prefers, and his mother Revelie travel back to the family ranch in Texas to be reunited with Loving, a man with whom Revelie once shared a passionate affair. He's been shot and is near death, but that is not the only tragedy playing out in the Lone Star State. It seems that the ax of family legend, that once rested in Pyg's father's tombstone, has been stolen. Now Pyg's leading a posse aiming to get it back.

Ordell Robbie and Louis Gara hit it off in prison, where they were both doing time for grand theft auto. Now that they're out, they're joining forces for one big score. The plan is to kidnap the wife of a wealthy Detroit developer and hold her for ransom. But they didn't figure the lowlife husband wouldn't want his lady back. So it's time for Plan B and the opportunity to make a real killing - with the unlikely help of a beautiful, ticked-off housewife who's hungry for a large helping of sweet revenge.

From the blood he spilled during the Civil War to his beloved wife, who died in childbirth, and his daughters, who were taken by the flu, ex-Texas Ranger Josiah Wolfe thought he had seen enough death for one lifetime. Now, with an infant son and a heart full of pain, he's rejoining the Rangers as part of the Frontier Battalion. But first, his captain needs him to escort Charlie Langdon to trial. Wolfe and Langdon had a long history together as both lawmen and soldiers. Wolfe knows his old friend has to pay. But the ride to the hangman's noose isn't going to be easy...

When Slade Donovan, strong willed and eager for vengeance, shows up on her front porch, Mariah is not ready to hear his truths: Her father's farm, the only home she's ever known, was bought with stolen gold. With Slade ready to collect his father's rightful claim and force Mariah and her family out on the streets, Mariah must turn to God for guidance. Though Mr. Frederick Cooper, a local landowner, promises to answer her financial woes if she agrees to be his bride, Mariah finds herself drawn instead to the angry young man demanding her home.

In this moving sequel to Big Rock Candy Mountain, Bruce Mason returns to Salt Lake City, not for his aunt's funeral but to encounter after 45 years the place he fled in bitterness. A successful statesman and diplomat, Mason had buried his awkward and lonely childhood and sealed himself off from the thrills and torments of adolescence to become a figure who commanded international respect.