Western Fiction

After a lifetime of robbing banks and holding up trains, Jimmy "Slash" Braddock and Melvin "Pecos Kid" Baker are ready to call it quits, though not completely by choice. Sold out by their old gang, they have to bust out of jail and pull one last job to finance their early retirement. The target is a rancher's payroll train. Catch is: the train is carrying a Gatling gun and 20 deputy US marshals who know they're coming. Caught and quickly sentenced to hang, their old enemy - the wheelchair-bound, bucket of mean, Marshal L. C. Bledsoe - shows up at the last minute to spare their lives.

Boston veterinarian Hayley Scampini tends the city's pampered pets but dreams of the rural life of a country vet. She's single and determined to stay that way, convinced that love isn't permanent enough to trust. Then, a vacation to the Whisper Creek dude ranch introduces her to Daniel McKee, a sexy single dad who runs the kind of veterinary practice she aspires to - and rattles her conviction to keep men at a distance.

He's the son of a cattle rancher. A restless young dreamer who, under normal circumstances, would follow in his father's footsteps. Normal, however, is not his style. Like his famous grandfather and namesake Perley Gates - a hell-raising mountain man with a heavenly name - young Perley wants adventure, excitement, and freedom. And like his grandfather before him, he will find his dream - in the untamed wilds of a lawless frontier. That dream though might just become a nightmare....

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.

This Christmas, the best kind of trouble comes in threes: three best-selling authors. Three stories of holiday romance. And three cowboys who are ready for love - whether they know it yet or not....

On the rolling Missouri River, a riverboat of fur traders, a US Senator, and Prussian royalty are all heading to the Yellowstone from St. Louis. Preacher's onboard because the nation's fate depends on the passengers landing safe and sound. But it won't be easy. Two beautiful women make a play for Preacher. So does a killer. So does a band of river pirates. No sooner does Preacher beat back these threats than the riverboat lands in the middle of a blood-soaked Indian ambush - with a Prussian nobleman and his family taken hostage.

Red Ryan should've known this job would be trouble. The first stop is a ghost town and the cargo is a coffin. But things start to look a little brighter when Red and his stage guard Buttons Muldoon deliver the corpse to a ranch run by the beautiful Luna Talbot. Luna asks the boys to help them find the Lucky Cuss Gold Mine, using a map tucked inside the dead man's pocket. Red has a feeling they're playing with fire. Especially when the map leads them straight into crossfire of a ferocious range war.

Oakley Hall's legendary Warlock revisits and reworks the traditional conventions of the Western to present a raw, funny, hypnotic, ultimately devastating picture of American unreality. First published in the 1950s, at the height of the McCarthy era, Warlock is not only one of the most original and entertaining of modern American novels but a lasting contribution to American fiction.

A remarkable collection of stories, Bad Dirt is filled with the vivid characters for which Annie Proulx has become known. In every story in this book, Proulx displays her wit and her knowledge of the West, of history, and, most of all, of characters who must use sheer will and courage to make it in tough territory.

Lance Kilkenny's gun is believed to be the fastest in the West, but once the gunfight is over, he disappears. Most folks don't even know what he looks like. Some time back, Mort Davis saved Kilkenny's life after he was shot up. Now Davis needs Kilkenny's help. He has filed a claim on a water hole near Lost Creek in the live oak country.

The trouble with being the fastest gun alive was having to prove it to all the trigger-happy gunmen who scoured the West itching for a challenge. Some traveled even further — Count Frederick von Hausen sailed across the Atlantic from Germany to hunt the most dangerous game of all — Smoke Jensen. Gathering together a hunting party of the toughest, most ruthless hard cases in the West, von Hausen shadowed Smoke into Wyoming's high Rockies — the odds were worse than 50 to 1.

Preacher and Hawk ride out of the Rockies and into St. Louis, loaded with furs. It’s Hawk’s first trip to civilization and the moment he lays eyes on young Chessie Dayton, he’s lost in more ways than one. When Chessie unwisely signs on for a gold-hungry expedition into the lawless mountains, Hawk convinces Preacher to trail the outfit because they’re all headed straight to the sacred Indian grounds known as the Black Hills — a land of no return. To come out of it alive a lot of people will have to die.

In the town of 34 Corners, Colorado, Matt Jensen rides into a savage blood feud. Thirty years ago two friends came West and built a thriving cattle business. Now, their families have become kill-crazy enemies and the town is awash in a frenzy of killing. Add in hired gunmen on both sides of the fight, and two lovers crossing the dividing line, and the terror will never end. Eager to put as many miles between himself and 34 Corners, Matt Jensen just can't bring himself to leave without trying to stop the bloodshed.

A brutal attack on Emily Stanton's family has left her for dead...until she is found in the woods by a handsome stranger with a thick brogue who vows to protect her. There's only one problem: As a woman with a noble English background, she has no business keeping company with such a man. For Scotsman Iain MacEnroy, Emily's high-tone accent is a bitter reminder of the oppressive regime he left behind. The last thing he needs is to be burdened by the needs of a beautiful, blue-eyed Englishwoman.

Loyal as a wolf - and just as strong and untamed - three solitary heroes are about to meet their perfect partners, in this thrilling collection from a trio of New York Times best-selling authors: Colorado Cowboy by Diana Palmer; The Wolf on Her Doorstep by Kate Pearce; and Rescue: Cowboy Style by Rebecca Zanetti.

From the moment Roan Taggart picked up the pretty redhead at the Jackson Hole airport, his training and experience told him she was spooked. She's left New York City to visit the Wind River Ranch, where Roan is a wrangler, and just as he can pick up a horse's mood, he can feel the tension coming off her body. And that vulnerability is triggering all his protective instincts.

Left with little back in Missouri, Kevin Hunt takes his younger siblings on a journey to Wyoming when he receives news that he's inheriting part of a ranch. The catch is that the ranch is also being given to a half brother he never knew existed. Turns out, Kevin's supposedly dead father led a secret and scandalous life. But danger seems to track Kevin along the way, and he wonders if his half brother, Wyatt, is behind the attacks. Finally arriving at the ranch, everyone is at each other's throats, and the only one willing to stand in between is Winona Hawkins, a nearby schoolmarm.

The first story in a fiery new series about the west's most dangerous boomtown, and the reformed outlaw who risks his life to keep it safe....In the dark shadow of the Prophecy Mountains lies the ramshackle town of Rattlesnake Wells, where dreamers come to make their fortunes, and desperados come to die. The streets of this little settlement are slick with mud and stained with blood, and it will fall to Bob Hatfield to sweep them clean. The town marshal, Hatfield, has a young man's face, but his eyes are those of a killer. He is a good man, but he has a secret that weighs on his soul.

One of Daphne Wade's guilty pleasures is to watch the Duke of Tremore as he works, shirtless, on the excavation site of his ducal estate. Anthony Courtland is by far the most exciting and handsome man she has ever known, and she dreams of one day being able to speak with him without getting tongue tied. Anthony, meanwhile, only sees her as a hard worker on his excavation team. He considers her a plain young lady and says so to a friend, unaware that Daphne is outside the library door, her heart shattering to pieces. So Daphne decides she will not be so silly any longer.

When Bruce Cowan takes his family and flees Boston to homestead out west, he figured the journey to California to be long but safe. Their first day out reveals how wrong he is and the perilous dangers of the Santa Fe Trail. It would have been a massacre but for Trent and Pat MacLeod. Trent favors a Sharps .50 caliber buffalo rifle, while his younger brother Pat packs two Texas Navy Colts. They both prove deadly and a force to be reckoned with. The Cowans and the McLeod brothers forge a bond those first few days, sustained in part by Trent's attraction to the 18-year-old Becky Cowan.