Western Life

The Lovely Bones meets the wild, Wild West in this haunting tale inspired by a true story. Pregnant out of wedlock, 16-year-old Annie Moore is sent to live at a convent for fallen women. When the nuns take her baby, Annie escapes, determined to find a way to be reunited with her daughter. But few rights or opportunities are available to a woman in the 1860s, and after failing to find a respectable job, she resorts to prostitution in order to survive.

Young Gavie sometimes "remembers" the future. But as a slave living among those who feel threatened by the powers of the Marsh people, Gavie must hide his abilities. And then tragic events force the grief-stricken Gavie to flee the only world he's ever known. In his perilous quest for freedom, Gavie must learn to harness his unique gifts, or he may never find a place he can call home.

Voices stars the people of Ansul, a town of scholars and traders conquered by the marauding Alds 17 years ago. When poet Orrec arrives in town, however, the people begin to garner the courage to rebel against their overlords.

Taboo takes place in the present day, in the rural South-West of Western Australia, and tells the story of a group of Noongar people who revisit, for the first time in many decades, a taboo place: the site of a massacre that followed the assassination, by these Noongar's descendants, of a white man who had stolen a black woman. They come at the invitation of Dan Horton, the elderly owner of the farm where the massacres unfolded. He hopes that by hosting the group he will satisfy his wife's dying wishes and cleanse some moral stain from the ground he and his family have lived.

A traveling prospector wandering around California looking for gold spends a few peaceful days with a man hiding a sad story.

After trying to help Benjamin Pearl, an undernourished, nearly feral 11-year-old boy living in the Montana wilderness, social worker Pete Snow comes face-to-face with the boy's profoundly disturbed father, Jeremiah. With courage and caution, Pete slowly earns a measure of trust from this paranoid survivalist itching for a final conflict that will signal the coming End Times. But as Pete's own family spins out of control, Pearl's activities spark the full-blown interest of the FBI, putting Pete at the center of a massive manhunt from which no one will emerge unscathed.

Evangeline Keating came West because she had to: after her husband's passing, she needed to build a new life for her young daughter, and marrying a stranger from Montana Territory was her best chance. After a difficult winter journey, she arrives at an isolated outpost called Springwater Station. But the handsome man who's come for her is not her husband-to-be, and Evangeline soon finds herself thrust into a most inconvenient - and highly improper - arrangement.

The Lindsay family has come west hoping to help the father, John, recover from an illness. When they arrive, they are induced to purchase Spanish Peaks Ranch, an abandoned United States military post surrounded by mountains. It seems like a perfect place to settle into their new life as ranchers. As they soon find out, though, this deserted fort is equally suited for both protection and imprisonment.

For Avery Spencer, the sight of rugged, sullen and dangerously sexy Callum Shepard is enough to set her pulse racing. Too bad she's only on his ranch to tell him that her adorable baby niece is his daughter! Reclusive rancher Callum is shocked to discover he's a father. But now Callum must learn to believe he does have what it takes to become a dad, and convince Avery that both she and baby Nell belong on the ranch - with him!

In the Uplands, people have magical and fearsome gifts. Orrec, a boy growing into his powers, can destroy any living thing with simply a glance. But he refuses to use his ability, and wears a blindfold to protect others from his devastating gaze.

"She who loves and runs away, lives to love another day" was Jacy Tiernan's credo. Only this fair-haired beauty had never loved again after Ian Yarbro. Ten years ago, she had fled her beloved Australian homestead with a shattered soul. Ian, the rugged sheep rancher who'd awakened her young heart to the most exquisite pleasures, had sired the child of another woman. Unable to forgive him, Jacy ran off to New York to live with her wealthy divorced mother, leaving behind all dreams of happiness. Now Jacy had returned to Corroboree Springs to care for her ailing father.

In the past thirty years, polygamy has become a flashpoint of conflict as Western governments attempt to regulate certain cultural and religious practices that challenge seemingly central principles of family and justice. In Forbidden Intimacies, Melanie Heath comparatively investigates the regulation of polygamy in the United States, Canada, France, and Mayotte.

Confessions of a Horseshoer offers a close and personal look at the mind-set of a professional horseshoer (farrier) who also happens to be a college professor. The audiobook, an ironic and playful view of the many unusual animals (and people) Ron Tatum has encountered over thirty-seven years, is nicely balanced between straightforward presentation, self-effacing humor, and lightly seasoned wisdom. It captures the day-to-day life of a somewhat cantankerous old guy.

Sarah Clark’s family endured the hardship of a wagon train journey to pursue their dream of land ownership in Kansas. The family of four scratches out a hardscrabble life on the windswept plains. Happily expecting another child, Sarah is bereft when the baby is stillborn. When a stagecoach robbery and shoot-out take her husband’s life, Sarah must make life-altering decisions.

Kit Carson: The Life of an American Border Man strikes a balance between prevailing notions about this quintessential Western figure. Whereas the dime novelists exploited Carson's popular reputation, Remley reveals that the real man was dependable, ethical, and - for his day - relatively open-minded. Remley sees Carson as a complicated man struggling to master life on America's borders, where people of different races, cultures, and languages met, mixed, and fought, sometimes against each other, sometimes together, for the possession of home, hunting rights, and honor.

Mark Scarbrough has been searching for something his entire life. Whether it’s his birth mother, true love, his purpose, or his sexual identity, Mark has been on a constant quest to find out who he really is, with the great Western texts as his steadfast companions. As a boy with his head constantly in a book, desperate to discover new worlds, he can hardly distinguish between their plots and his own reality.

Billy the Kid - born Henry McCarty in 1859, and also known as William H. Bonney - emerges from this audio in all his complexity, at once a gentleman and gregarious companion and a thief and violent murderer. Tapping new depths of research, Etulain traces Billy’s short life from his mysterious origins in the East through his wanderings in New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas.

In pursuit of their dream of a simpler life amidst the natural beauty of Andalusia, Sabina and Robert embark on a life-changing journey from Abu Dhabi to the rugged landscapes of Spain. Drawn by the allure of whitewashed villages, red geraniums, and endless olive trees, they find their paradise—a quaint stone cottage nestled in a secluded mountain valley.

When the past haunts Mary, will she live long enough to make it right? Mary escaped the horrific clutches of Victor Del Avilasto, a man hell-bent on leaving no loose ends. Before Victor’s dead body is buried in the Denver cemetery, her past comes alive. What she thought well behind her in Kansas City, is now in front of her with revolvers and a hangman’s noose. Ross Montgomery was with Mary when they escaped Victor’s clutches. Mary saved his life. This rough around the edges woman captured his heart, but before he could strum up the courage to call on her, she’s taken.

The book explores themes of Buddhist and Stoic mindfulness, shared psychological insights, as well as Stoic and Buddhist practices for cultivating compassion and concern for others. It is for anyone who is interested in how either Stoicism or Buddhism can be a helpful and heartfelt addition to his or her life, as well as reflecting on how both Stoicism and Buddhism are undergoing dynamic "reinterpretations" in the modern world.