Western Fiction

Johnstone country. Looking for trouble? Then look no further. As a Pinkerton agent, Stoneface Finnegan faced the deadliest killers in the West. But now that he runs a saloon, he serves them hard liquor - with a shot of harder justice. The devil walks into a bar. Stoneface Finnegan and his new partner are busy renovating The Last Drop Saloon when a very unusual stranger comes to town. He's nothing like the prairie rat drifters, world-weary miners, and would-be outlaws who normally pass through Boar Gulch.

It was a land where nothing was small, nothing was simple. Everything, the lives of men and the stories they told, ran to extremes. Shanghaied into forced labor on a merchant vessel, Charles Rodney dies aboard ship from repeated beatings, but not before deeding part of his ranch to Rafe Caradec, whom he hopes will protect his family.

It had taken four long, difficult years to tame the virgin prairie of Dakota Territory. Looking back through all the heartache and the body-breaking labor, Ingeborg Bjorklund knew that God had been with them every step of the way. Dreams that had turned into veritable nightmares had been reshaped with the promise of a new day rising, and her marriage to Haaken had been its sure sign.

Alan Le May’s Western novels are widely considered classics in the genre, and the movie adaptation of The Searchers was named AFI’s Greatest Western Movie of All Time. When Martin Pauley and Amos Edwards return to their Texas homestead to find a burning ruin, they set out to find Amos’ missing daughter - and exact revenge on the Comanche responsible for the attack.

Grace Martindale has known more than her share of hardship. After her parents died, raising her two younger sisters became her responsibility. A hasty marriage to a minister who is heading to the untamed West seemed like an opportunity for a fresh start, but a cholera outbreak along the wagon trail has left Grace a widow in a very precarious position.

Clint Black ran the biggest cattle operation in Montana. His Circle 45 spread controlled the best water, the richest graze, and he had his own personal army of cutthroats. And he didn't like competition. Only a fool could fail to see trouble when Smoke Jensen brought 3,500 head up from Colorado to sell to Black's neighbor. When Clint's greed overcomes his common sense and he butchers Smoke's entire crew, Smoke will seek a vengeance never before seen in the wild west. Clint Black has a lesson to learn, and this lesson will cost him the most important thing of all: Blood.

She'd come to Alaska on the promise of marriage, only to find herself on the run from her would-be husband. Lost and alone in the wilderness, Emily Hunter nearly weeps with relief at the sight of a small plane in the distance - until the rugged bush pilot makes his way through the brush to help her. Can she trust this stranger any more than the menacing predator on her trail? But there's something in John Wolf's dark eyes that wills her to believe in him, something about his gentle nature that allows her to accept his offer of protection.

Hope Flanagan survived the massacre at the Whitman Mission, but at terrible personal cost. Safe now in Oregon City, she lives with her sisters, Grace and Mercy, and Grace's new husband, Alex. Hope's precarious new peace is shattered when those responsible for the massacre are captured and put on trial. She is asked to testify against them, but she's not sure she can bear to relive the events of those horrific days. As Hope struggles to free herself from the pain of her past, Lance Kenner brings an unexpected ray of light into her life.

Winter 1906. Nearing bankruptcy after surviving drought, storms, and the rustling of her cattle, Sarah remains a stalwart pillar to her extended family. Then a stagecoach accident puts in her path three strangers who will change her life. In sickness and in health, neighbor Udell Hanna remains a trusted friend, pressing for Sarah to marry. When he reveals a plan to grant Sarah her dearest wish, she is overwhelmed with passion and excitement.

When the brothers head into the small cow town of Crossville, close by Devil Creek, all they want is to stock up on supplies and rest their weary horses. Instead, they find themselves in the middle of a bloody range war that’s literally split the town down the middle. The warring factions have set up camp on either side of Main Street and the newcomers ride in on a deserted strip of no man’s land where anything - and nothing good - is liable to happen.

Hailey Taylor knows ski racing, and it’s paid off, because she’s a champion. The top of her game. Until she wiped out last season and blew out her knee. Her body may have recovered, but her head’s not back in the game. Meeting Lucas Mills doesn’t help, because the instant connection they share is just too good to ski away from. And when Lucas is game for getting his best friend in on their bed sport? Hailey’s ready to play.

If anyone knows the road to purgatory, it's Red Ryan. As a stagecoach guard, he's faced holdups, ambushes, and all-out attacks from every kill-crazy outlaw, Indian, and prairie rat. But even he's a bit reluctant to take on his next job: riding shotgun with his driver Buttons Muldoon on a stage bound from Fort Concho, Texas, to Fort Bliss.

Opening in the settlement of Long Grass, Texas - not quite in Kansas, and nearly New Mexico - we encounter the taciturn Wyatt, whiling away his time in between bottles, and the dentist-turned-gunslinger Doc, more adept at poker than extracting teeth. Now hailed as heroes for their days of subduing drunks in Abilene and Dodge - more often with a mean look than a pistol - Wyatt and Doc are living out the last days of a way of life that is passing into history, two men never more aware of the growing distance between their lives and their legends.

Snake Creek is a shabby little Texas town ruled by a mean-tempered outlaw who fancies himself a king — King Petty. He and his gang do what they want, when they want, and right now what Petty wants is the pretty wife of a farmer he just shot in cold blood. But Sam Two Wolves just can't stand by and watch as this King Petty drags the widow down the street and before long he and Matt find themselves in the fight of their lives. It's a fight they never meant to start, but they sure as hell are going to finish it.

He was raised by the mountain man called Preacher, and he was said to be the fastest gun alive. Until he hung up his gunbelts to raise a family. Smoke Jensen was the last mountain man and a force of nature. But Lee Slater and his gang of low life desperadoes didn’t know that. Stirring up a motherlode of trouble for the retired gunslinger was Slater’s first mistake. Shooting Smoke Jensen’s wife Sally was his second.

Across the border is another wanderer and another tribe. Preacher’s old enemy, Willie Deaver, plies a band of Indians with the deadliest combination possible: whisky, guns, and bullets — then directs them to try out their killing tools on the Assiniboine. The raid reaps a harvest of devastating death, bloodshed, and helpless captives. Deaver is all the more delighted when he learns Preacher is among the fallen.

Smoke Jensen couldn't have cared less about a range war that had erupted in far-off Montana. But when his cousin Fae is stuck right in the middle of the hundred-gun showdown that's exploding in bullets and blood, he rides to intercede in the name of family. He's joined on his mission by the Moab Kid and legendary gunfighters Charlie Starr and Pistol Le Roux.

Preacher is on the move, joining a trail drive led by freewheeling adventurer Wiley Courtland. Wiley has good horses to deliver to the American Fur Company at Fort Gifford. An Indian war party, led by the cunning and ruthless Red Knife, has other plans. Furiously fighting their way to safety, the horse traders make it to Fort Gifford, where the beautiful wife of the fort’s commander makes a raid of her own, with the help of Preacher’s newfound buddy Wiley.

The Sante Fe Trail stretches from the Mississippi River to New Mexico Territory through the West's most savage lands. That's why a wealthy trader hires the mountain man called Preacher to keep his trade goods safe. But then, a towering, seemingly supernatural grizzly bear attacks. Both outlaws and Comanches ambush the wagon train. And the travelers find themselves surrounded by predators of every shape and stripe. For Preacher, there is only one way to go - straight into the heart of danger, to blaze a killing trail of his own....

In 1812, 12-year-old Art is a boy filled with wanderlust and raw courage. He runs away from home to begin a journey from Ohio westward. Along the way, he’ll run up against badlands and bad men. He’ll lose his freedom, gain his freedom, fight in the bloody Battle of New Orleans and learn the first rule of the frontier: do whatever it takes to survive. With ruthless enemies after him - both white men and Indians - Art will head for a place as brutal as it is beautiful - the wilderness of the Rocky Mountains.