Western Womens Fiction

Annie Lakes has had the same recurring nightmare for years. Her heart pounding in her chest. A panicked voice, begging her to run faster. Her own bloodcurdling scream. But now Annie is starting to realize it's more than just a bad dream. She's starting to remember things about the night her cousin Jenny disappeared all those years ago. Things that make her believe her family was involved - and what they're hiding is much worse than she ever imagined. But she can't unravel this alone. She needs someone she can trust, someone like sexy Detective Mark Sutton.

Talk about a bad hair day. Louisiana beauty salon owner Charmaine LeDeux has a loan shark on her tail, and Raoul Lanier, the six-foot-three hunk of testosterone she thought she divorced, has just delivered a bombshell: They're still married! At least the rundown ranch they've inherited together is the perfect hideout. With the moon shining over the bayou, this Cajun cowboy must sweet-talk his way into his wife's arms again...before she unties the knot for good!

After one too many heartbreaks, Travis Blake hung up his cowboy hat and put Big Verde, Texas, behind him. But when he gets the call that his young nephew needs him, he knows he has to return home. His plan is to sell the family ranch and hightail it back to Austin, but there's a small problem: The one person who stands in his way is the one person he can't resist.

Jessica is the quintessential 1920s wealthy bad girl from Montana with a penchant for running away from home if things don't go her way. As her brother's wedding to the sugary sweet Chastity nears, Jessica grows stir-crazy yet again. This time, however, fleeing south to Wyoming turns out to be much more dangerous than she ever could have predicted. When her brother hires skilled tracker Sleeping Fox to find her and bring her home, her life is forever changed.

Laura Kensington knows it's now or never. If she doesn't leave her abusive husband, not only is her life in danger but the life of her unborn child is, as well. But even after the monster she married dies suddenly, Laura realizes she can never escape his family, the ruthless and dangerous Kensington clan, who consider the baby she's carrying to be their own. Desperate and determined, she flees to Evers, Texas, with a new identity, taking refuge on the ranch of Cade Bishop, a man who firmly believes in second chances.

Raquel was never sure why she surrendered to a total stranger. Naive impulse, primal instinct, or feminine intuition? By morning she was no longer a truck stop waitress, but a woman on the way to an isolated Wyoming ranch with Holt Tyler - and he wanted to know all the secrets she'd guarded so carefully these past months.

She ran away to see the world. He was left behind with the fallout. Do these childhood sweethearts still have a chance at happily-ever-after? Salt Lick, Kentucky. Prodigal child Clem Calhoun is home to beg for forgiveness. But returning after a seven-year stint in the military has her more nervous than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

Mary Louisa Roberts won the race of a lifetime - or so she thought. In competition with desperate homesteaders, ruthless land seekers, and a sheriff determined to see her fail, Mary rides out on a horse to strike her claim in the Oklahoma Land Rush of 1893. When she finally thrusts her flag into the dirt, 160 acres becomes her own. But with that claim, she risks more than she could ever imagine.

Nora Sheridan, a loving wife and mother and talented artist, lives with her husband Dan, an architect, and their two young daughters Suzie and Kristin on their sprawling horse ranch in Akers Ridge, Oregon. Nora's world is shattered when her family is the victim of a violent crime, tragically taking their lives and ending hers in the ways that counted most. Now alone and in her mid-30s, Nora struggles to cope with her life that hardly seems worth living with the help of her best friend Marilyn and her father-in-law George.

Struggling to operate her ranch, Terra Lee Bradford realizes the full extent of the Glory B’s dire financial straits. Cameron Stoner’s neighboring ranch, on the other hand, is thriving. Yet he’s overwhelmed with problems trying to tame his three motherless children - not to mention his libido. Concocted as an instant solution to everyone's woes, their marriage of convenience soon turns into a lusty battle of wills. He'll be damned if he'll give her his heart, and she refuses to settle for less!

In the small, bustling town of Mattawa, Oregon, the turn of the century offers a new kind of frontier for women: a vast and exciting range of possibilities - to a point. It's a time for change, and no one is more eager to embrace new paths than free-spirited outsider Hattie Taylor. If only she could embrace Jake Murdock, too. Jake can't remember a time he was so confused. Hattie is off-limits. The provoking spitfire is under his mother's protection - his protection - and he has always belonged to another.

No one gets a second chance at first love...right? Shyann Riggs had dreams bigger than her small town could hold. Now she’s back in town and itching to get the family farm ready to sell. Too bad the only help available comes in the form of her first love - the man whose heart she shattered when she left...Garrett Dixon never expected to see Shyann again. He certainly never thought she’d show up on his doorstep, asking for help. Now all he has to do is figure out if he wants to help her sell her last tether to home...or convince her to stay.

Dead Woman Creek blends rugged frontier action with the often-tender sensibilities of its passion-driven characters. Partnered with the sprawl and splendor of the land itself, it is a story of men and women together, each with their own struggle, each with their own courage. Standing in the middle, guns drawn, is Marshal Boone Crowe, a haunted man in search of secrets.

Kidnapped at the age of 16, Maggie survived the fickle temper of notorious outlaw Mad Dog Frank O’Bannen for seven years. Now, he is dead, and she is about to find out that there are worse ways to live and die than as the wife of a wanted man. Frank had prepared her as best he could for what would follow, and when she leaves her prison in the hills, she has the blood of three men on her hands and knows the feel of hot lead. Maggie has Frank’s gun, her keen wits, and new friends to help her, but will they be enough to save her from the brutality of a maniac bent on revenge?

First rule of life on the run: never get attached. Nevada Sweet knows that better than anyone - it's just too dangerous to stay put. And until now, she's never wanted to. But she gets more than she bargained for when she walks into the Chestnut Creek Café looking for a job. Despite the protective wall she's built, her coworker Joseph has her imagining a life she isn't yet convinced she deserves.

In the inhospitable lands of the Utah Territory, during the winter of 1888, thirty-seven-year-old Deborah Tyler waits for her husband, Samuel, to return home from his travels as a wheelwright. It is now the depths of winter, Samuel is weeks overdue, and Deborah is getting worried. Deborah lives in Junction, a tiny town of seven Mormon families scattered along the floor of a canyon, and she earns her living by tending orchards and making work gloves. Isolated by the red-rock cliffs that surround the town, she and her neighbors live apart from the outside world.

Clinching is the technique used to bend a driven horseshoe nail to hold the shoe to a hoof. Rainy Dale is The Clincher, a 20-something high school-dropout turned farrier (horseshoer) who is haunted by a secret she carries. Estranged from her California D-list actress momma and her ranch hand Texas daddy, she tracked down her childhood horse in small-town Oregon - a land full of cowboys and their horses - then stayed to build a life with her tools, steel, and forge. She’s sleeping in a garage and trying not to fall for her landlord, the hapless and hopeful chef, Guy.

Thomas McCabe is on his way to a brilliant career as a lawyer when, in 1837, he gives everything up to take a job with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Sent to live with a tribe in the wilds of Missouri, McCabe soon saves the life of a young brave. Subsequently, yet grudgingly, he is accepted by the Cheyenne, until he falls hopelessly in love with the beautiful, and betrothed, Night Bird Woman. Determined to marry her, McCabe must prove himself to the tribe.

The gay 1890s aren't always. Gay that is. Sometimes life is dangerous, especially if you're next on someone's murder list. In 1896, there aren't many career choices for a young lady. China Bohannon has fled one bad situation, and is looking to start her life over as a strong, independent woman in the wild and woolly town of Spokane, Washington. Convincing Gratton Doyle to take her seriously as a bookkeeper is hard enough, and when it comes to working as an investigator in the Doyle & Howe Detective Agency, it's well - nigh impossible.

Imagine living exclusively for others and waking up one day with a chance to start over. The terrifying new beginning reeks of abandonment and betrayal. The choice for Seattle resident Monica lingers between now and then and them and her. Izabel's idyllic existence on Orcas Island is turned upside down during the birth of a friend's child. Suddenly, pain rips through her own body, and life as she knows it shifts, hinting at a forgotten past and propelling her toward an uncertain future. On another island, young Daisy awakens surrounded by infinite shades of blue.