Western Fiction

On the Western frontier there was no lawman more feared and respected than U.S. Marshal Bill Tilghman. But now Tilghman has found the body of a man left outside a Texas saloon. And with more than a strong hunch who the killer was, Tilghman starts tracking down a man just as legendary as he is: Smoke Jensen.

The adventure begins for Falcon MacCallister in the town of Tombstone, where his new-found friend Doc Holliday gets an invitation to a dance of death at the O.K. Corral. From there, Falcon will travel from the Arizona border to the shadows of the Dragoon Mountains, pursuing a murderous band of Apaches led by the Mescalero chief Naiche. His warriors are bent on the slaughter of every man, woman and child they encounter on their way to a war council with Chief Gokaleh, better known as the infamous Geronimo.

Nearly 70, Wes Hendricks has led a tough and colorful life as a cowboy and broncobuster, and all he asks now is that he be left alone on his poor, hardscrabble ranch in the West Texas hill country. Not a chance - the powers that be in the little town of Big River (including Wes' old cowboy pal, druggist/Mayor Orville Levitt) have decreed that an artificial lake will be created to generate tourism, and Wes' ranch stands squarely in their way.

Nursing a bitter hatred for Smoke Jensen, the man responsible for landing them in Yuma Territorial Prison, Olin Buckner, Ralph Tinsdale, and twisted archenemy Victor Spectre manage to escape and rally an army of gunslingers and cutthroats for the purpose of getting even. And their first act is to kidnap Sally, Smoke Jensen's wife.

Texas. They took the most contrary bunch of frontiersmen, ranchers, farmers, cowpokes, shiftless no-accounts, shootists, rascals, and politicians, jumbled them together, and somehow formed a state. They called it Texas, but for defenseless women and children, it was hell.

When Cimarron ranch patriarch Chance Boden is caught in an avalanche, the quick actions of hired hand Heath Kincaid save him. Badly injured, Chance demands that his will be read and its conditions be enforced immediately. Without anyone else to serve as a witness, Heath is pressed into reading the will. If Justin, Sadie, and Cole Boden don't live and work at home for the entire year, the ranch will go to their low-down cousin, Mike.

The prairie fires that sweep the grazing lands, the coming of white men with their guns and diseases, and the quick slaughter of the vast buffalo herds leave Running Fawn's Blackfoot tribe with little choice but to take up residence on the assigned Reserve. All her life, Running Fawn has known only contentment, but now what will become of her hopes and dreams?

They just wanted to get home for Christmas...but fate had other plans. It's December 1890. A Texas rancher named Big Jim Conyers has a deal with Scottish-born, Wyoming cattleman named Duff MacCallister. Along with Smoke and Matt Jensen, the party bears down on Dodge, Kansas, to make a cattle drive back to Forth Worth. But before they can get out of Dodge, guns go off and a rich man's son is killed.

When Duff MacCallister sees smoke rising from his neighbor's ranch, he knows something is very wrong. But he isn't prepared for what he finds: smoldering buildings, a rancher and his wife brutally slaughtered, and a 14-year-old survivor who could not save her parents. Now, Duff is going after the killers - and his only companion is the headstrong girl who refuses to be left behind. Duff and his new companion head into the towering Gore Range. Up ahead are two convicted murderers who were about to be hung in Cheyenne and the killers who broke them loose.

This Old West adventure from genre stalwart Mike Kearby comes heartily recommended by Historical Novels Review. Free Anderson's days as a soldier may be over, but his war is just beginning. An enemy stalks him, waiting to exact vengeance. Now framed and set to hang in Texas, Free is aided by a friend from his army days. Together again on the trail of Free's accuser, the two men encounter such towering figures as Wild Bill Hickok and General Custer.

This riveting story takes place during the Battle of the Hundred in the Hand, otherwise known as the Fetterman Massacre of 1866. The story is told alternately through the eyes of Cloud, a dedicated Lakota warrior who fights alongside a young Crazy Horse, and Max Hornsby, a white pioneer who mistakes Cloud's redheaded wife for a captive.

William Johnstone has over a million copies of his popular Westerns in print. Rolling into the small town of San Remo, Frank Morgan and his faithful companion Dog bear witness to a violent range war. Frank gets drawn in deeper when he’s recruited by one side against the other. Weary from a life of settling scores with pistols, Morgan sides with the townsfolk and reluctantly accepts their marshal’s badge in the hopes of ending the bloodshed.

This latest installment in Johnstone's series about frontiersman Jamie MacCallister finds the former gunfighter, now 50, leading a serene life of retirement in Colorado even as his sons are fighting on both sides of the Civil War. Summoned to Washington, Jamie is offered the position of chief scout for the Union by Lincoln himself. But though the rugged Westerner loathes slavery, he loves states' rights more and, after a meeting with Robert E. Lee, he signs up with the Confederacy as commander of a guerrilla band.

Ranger's Trail takes listeners back to 1874 for a rousing tale of the legendary Texas Rangers. The Rangers are reorganizing, and they badly want Rusty Shannon to re-enlist. But Rusty has plans for a quiet, married life. Then a terrible tragedy destroys his world, and sends him down the treacherous trail of revenge.

In "The Trail to Peach Meadow Canyon", Mike Bastian has been raised by outlaw chief Ben Curry and trained in frontier skills by Curry's most trusted associates. Curry now wants to retire from leadership of the gang he has headed for years. But he is frustrated in this ambition by various factions within his gang who want to seize leadership and by Mike himself, who is not sure that he wants to lead the life of an outlaw.

Kira Duval was part of a Special Forces team that got caught in an ambush - leaving only two wounded survivors: herself and Weapons Sergeant Garret Fleming. Losing her team was traumatic, and in the chaotic aftermath, as the Army moved them from hospital to hospital, she lost Garret too. But she never lost her secret yearning for him. Finally, she gave up trying to track him down back in the States.

With his legend dogging him everywhere he goes, Frank Morgan longs for a place to settle down. His choice is a remote corner of untamed Northern California, a land of towering trees and rugged hills. But for Frank, the haven is a hell. A man who is his exact look-alike has been terrorizing the local population and when the townspeople get their hands on Frank, a hangman's rope is sure to follow. If he's going to be taken for an outlaw, Frank Morgan is going to act like one.

Amelia Howard cherishes her desert country. The dazzling colors, white heat, and rough sensuality of west Texas stir her very soul. But there's a serpent in her paradise: King Culhane. A towering sunburned cowboy with silver eyes that miss nothing, he's a man she's come to despise - no matter how much she had worshiped him when she was younger. As her father pushes her to secure a marriage proposal from King's mild-mannered brother in order to marry into the Culhane dynasty, Amelia assumes the mask of a demure young lady, always correct and obedient.

In the land of towering mountains and howling winds, the young man named Preacher has found a home. In the wilds, he has learned the rules of survival — and he has killed in order to live. Now, something is forcing Preacher out of his Rocky Mountain range for the so-called “civilized” world. It is the memory of a woman, his first and only true love. It is her blood calling out for revenge.

The women of Bliss County have a pact - to find husbands. The right husbands. One already has: Hadleigh Stevens, who married rancher Tripp Galloway a few months ago. Now Melody Nolan thinks it's her turn. Melody has recently found success as a jewelry designer, and her work is the focus of her life. She's not exactly unhappy, but she wants more.