Western Fiction

In this taut, chilling audiobook, Lester Ballard - a violent, dispossessed man falsely accused of rape - haunts the hill country of East Tennessee when he is released from jail. While telling his story, Cormac McCarthy depicts the most sordid aspects of life with dignity, humor, and characteristic lyrical brilliance.

Long before there was a mountain man called Preacher, a young adventurer set off with a team of fur traders from St. Louis for the time of his life. On a wild frontier, he sought a fortune. Instead, he found blood, betrayal and the beginning of a legend. Armed only with a knife, surrounded by a fierce Blackfoot war party, the young man was forced to kill a warrior chief in an act of audacious courage. But when a savage grizzly bear attack left him half-dead, he could no longer protect himself.

Swept away when her wagon train attempts a difficult river crossing, Ruthy MacNeil isn't all that upset at being separated from the family who raised her. All they've ever done is work her to the bone. She prayed for a chance to get away, and then came the raging flood. Alive but disoriented, she's rescued by Luke Stone...so unfortunately, there are more chances to die in her immediate future. Luke is heading home to reclaim the ranch stolen from his family.

It starts with a prison break in Missouri. When notorious bank robber Ansel McCoy busts out, he teams up with five other outlaws. Then he and his gang rob a bank in Kansas. Now they're crossing state lines into Oklahoma Indian Territory. And that's where US Marshal Will Tanner steps in. Other marshals from Kansas and Missouri have already lost the trail. Which means Tanner has to go it alone. Deep in the wilderness. Outnumbered and outgunned. One good man against six blood-crazed killers.

When Penny and John are taken against their will by a shadowy figure looking for evidence they don't have, both realize they've stumbled into something dangerous and complicated. With their friends and family desperately searching for them, Penny and John must make a daring escape. When they emerge back into the real world, they are confronted with a kidnapper who just won't stop.

There's nothing like a wedding to bring families together. And there's no place like the Sugarloaf Ranch to throw a foot-stomping hoedown - even if it turns into a gun-blazing showdown. Smoke and Sally Jensen are delighted that their son, Louis, is marrying the lovely widow he met during a perilous stagecoach journey through the Donner Pass. The whole family welcomes the bride and her young son with open arms.

Smoke Jensen was the last Mountain Man and the fastest gun in the west. But this time, Smoke is going to put his reputation to the test in the southern reaches of Mexico. When two Mexican Gunfighters, and old friends of Smoke Jensen, send a letter asking Smoke for help, he can't possibly say no. He quickly straps on his hog legs and heads down into the middle of a war. A crazy Mexican Bandito, that fancies himself the resurrection of Montezuma, has formed a vast and unstoppable army, and he marches across the land.

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.

They struck in a pack, in the dead of night. They had crept in like thieves, like the cowards they were...but it wasn't robbery they had in mind. It was something much darker. Smoke Jensen was buying cattle 100 miles away from his Colorado ranch when he got the news. Drawing two horses from the remuda, he saddled up, rode off...and didn't stop until he reached his wife's side. She had been shot three times, and lay close to death. Smoke Jensen knew the outlaws had come to kill him. He wouldn't give them a second chance. He was going after them. And he wasn't taking any prisoners.

Sure, it would've been easy killing Two Diamond Joe with a second shot. No man takes a .44 round square between the eyes and survives. But Jeston Nash only wants his prize horse back from the man, and a fast trail out of the New Mexico badlands. Together again with Quiet Jack, Nash is on a hunt that will take him through unforgiving terrain, a tangle of firebrand beauties, and even into a lawman's trust - before squaring off with most ruthless pack of gunmen ever to rule the desert frontier.

No one remembered when he’d come to the mountains - it seemed like Preacher had always been there. He’d seen a world of wonders in the unmapped mountains and forests of the vast North American frontier. In fact, he figured he wouldn’t be surprised by anything anymore. But that was before Preacher traveled into the Ferris Range of Wyoming and discovered the city of Nova Roma....

RITA Award winner Jodi Thomas continues her Whispering Mountain series with this second installment. Horse breeder Tobin McMurray doesn’t venture too far from his homestead. But when a Texas senator offers Tobin handsome compensation to deliver a horse to his daughter and teach her how to ride, he grudgingly agrees. Soon Tobin finds himself falling in love with the beautiful woman—but their budding romance is headed straight for danger.

In the first in this trio of Western stories by Louis L'Amour - "Black Rock" - Jim Gatlin, a Texas trail driver, arrives in the town of Tucker where he finds himself quickly drawn into the middle of an all-out battle for the XY Ranch when, due to a case of mistaken identity, he kills the segundo of Wing Cary's Flying C Ranch. Gatlin is a dead-ringer for Jim Walker, who, like Cary, wants control of the XY. Gatlin is thrown into a situation in which all he can do but fight for his life.

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.

One fateful night four years ago, Destiny Rose Porter gave in to her desires and ended up with a shattered heart. A heart that, with time, learned to heal and guard itself. But when Jefferson James Briggs returns to their small hometown of Wishing Well, Texas, memories of that unforgettable night come back with him.... JJ Briggs knew he had started something he couldn't finish four years ago. But now, he was back to set it right. The sexy Major League pitcher never forgot about his fiery redhead. The love and passion he felt for his "Pip" never faded.

When hunky rancher "Lucky Beau" Luckadeau accuses spitfire Milli Torres of stealing his prize bull, she promptly shoots at him, triggering a neighborly feud that only gets resolved when they discover they share a steamy hot memory from a night long ago. It was a night of passion that has haunted Lucky. The mysterious beauty he seduced at a cousin's wedding has disappeared. He's always been lucky at cards, lucky with cattle, and lucky with land, but he's never been lucky in love.

The tall, dark stranger needed Wren Matthew's help - and the shy high school teacher couldn't turn away a man in distress. She didn't know why Keegan Winslow was out in the middle of an ice storm, but the spirit of the holidays compelled her to open her home to him. And although she'd sworn off men, she couldn't deny the sparks that crackled between them. Keegan was a cop on a mission when sweet, lovely Wren rescued him from the storm. But the haven - and the love - he found in her arms was a happiness he knew couldn't last. He couldn't offer her the one thing she wanted: his heart.

The gold-mining town of Red Light, Montana is the kind of backwater hole less famous for the folks that live there than the ones who die there - like Janey Jensen, Smoke Jensen's sister. Smoke never would have gone there if it hadn't been for her estate. But that isn't the only thing the Mountain Man's got to settle. There's also the score between him and Major Cosgrove. The man who owns Red Light - lock, stock and barrel - is six feet of trouble looking for somebody like Smoke to bring out the worst in him.

Piper Kate McKenzie, mayor of Honey Creek, won't let a major scandal rip her quirky hometown apart, or jeopardize her dream of one day running for higher office. So she calls for reinforcements to find the source of corruption in the sheriff's office - two men recommended by her Texas Ranger brothers....

Luke Ransom was just 18 years old when he answered an ad in a St. Louis newspaper that would change his life forever. The American Fur Company needed 100 enterprising men to travel up the Missouri River - the longest in North America - all the way to its source. They would hunt and trap furs for one, two, or three years. Along the way, they would face unimaginable hardships: grueling weather, wild animals, hunger, exhaustion, and hostile attacks by the Blackfeet and Arikara. Luke Ransom was one of the brave men chosen for the job - and one of the few to survive....