Wilderness Fiction

Written in haunting, lyrical prose, Kit’s Wilderness examines the bonds of family from one generation to the next, and explores how meaning and beauty can be revealed from the depths of darkness.

It's Jake's birthday. He is sitting in a small plane, being flown over the landscape that has been the backdrop to his life - his childhood, his marriage, his work, his passions. Now he is in his early sixties, and he isn't quite the man he used to be. He has lost his wife, his son is in prison, and he is about to lose his past, for Jake has Alzheimer's.

In this riveting novel of the French and Indian War, master storyteller Harold Coyle takes us back to a time when America's vast riches were up for grabs. From 1754 through 1759, British and American colonial forces were locked in constant battle with the French and their Indian allies over the great territories of the Ohio Valley. For British army captain Thomas Shields, the war is an opportunity for fame, but the untamed wilderness he finds himself in defies all his expectations of the battlefield.

When a deadly plague reaches the small fish camp where he lives, an orphan named Leif is forced to take to the water in a cedar canoe. He flees northward, following a wild, fjord-riven shore, navigating from one danger to the next, unsure of his destination. But the deeper into his journey he paddles, the closer he comes to his truest self as he connects to “the heartbeat of the ocean...the pulse of the sea”.

Shattered by the discovery of her husband's affair, Liv knows they need to leave the chaos of New York to save their marriage. Maybe the road trip they'd always planned, exploring America's national parks - just the two of them - would help heal the wounds.

After inheriting his uncle’s lodge, Silas Matheson hopes the grandeur of the California Sierra Nevada will be a fresh start for his two young sons, and a chance to finally face his demons. It was here, fifteen years ago, that Silas and his friends Jessica, Danny, and Meg ventured into the mountain wilderness and Jessica vanished without a trace. When his boys go missing in the same dark woods, the fear and guilt that Silas has been running from ever since come crashing back.

Casey Duncan, Rockton's only detective on a police force of three, has already faced murder, arson, and falling in love in the several months she's lived there. Yet even she didn't think it would be possible for an outsider to locate the town and cause trouble in the place she's come to call home. When a US marshal shows up demanding the release of one of the residents but won't say who, Casey and her boyfriend, Sheriff Eric Dalton, are skeptical. And yet only hours later, the marshal is shot dead, and the only possible suspects are the townspeople and Casey's estranged sister....

Charlie Bone has finally found his father, but he’s disappeared again - on a second honeymoon with Charlie’s mother. But there’s no time to miss them, for there’s a strange salty mist in the air, and chilling howls in the night. And someone has been searching Charlie’s house. What are they looking for? And could Dagbert, the new boy with pale lips and cold aquamarine eyes, have something to do with it?

Warden Investigator Mike Bowditch already has a troubling mystery on his hands: finding the archer who mortally wounded Maine’s only wild wolf. Then he learns his best friend, Billy Cronk, has been released from prison after heroically defending a female guard from a stabbing. Mike comes to believe the assault was orchestrated by a wider criminal conspiracy. When the conspirators pursue Billy's wife and children to a “safe" cabin in the woods, Mike rushes to their defense only to find himself outnumbered, outgunned - and maybe out of options.

"If you, too, feel like wandering, come along and help me unravel this odd tale - a tale full of half-truths, whole-truths, and no-truths at all." So begins Frank Capra's never published, and often speculated about novel of his favorite place - Silver Lake, nestled in the jagged cliffs of the eastern Sierra Nevadas. Capra casts the fictional Frank Capra in the lead roll of this novel of environmental and humanitarian preservation.

When Artemis Borke opens a trading post in Nate King's territory, both settlers and Shoshone have access to goods and supplies. But Borke also begins to sell liquor, which has severe consequences for the Shoshone warriors - even more so when bloodthirsty Crows target the village.

Jimmy Benge is excited to celebrate his thirteenth birthday with an ice fishing adventure in northern Minnesota. He's even allowed to invite his best friend, Ryan, to spend winter break at the family’s lakeside home. The two boys learn a lot about ice fishing and catch a few panfish but decide to fish for something bigger: Northern pike, the alpha predators of the lake.

For twelve-year-old Coral, having divorced parents means only getting to see her dad a few times each year. So when he invites her on a guided elk hunt—on horseback—in the Colorado mountains over fall break, Coral is thrilled. She's sure that this will be the adventure of a lifetime—and great bonding time with her father—even if she is nervous around horses.

For twelve-year-old Hailey, the upcoming annual family duck hunt is a chance to prove that she’s finally ready to join her family in the duck blind. She's also hoping that Cocoa, the excitable young dog she chose last fall against her parents’ advice, has what it takes to make a great retriever.

Rodney Locust is finally twelve, the age his dad says he must be to attend the annual deer hunt on his family’s allotment in the hills of eastern Oklahoma. But there's a lot of work to do before Rodney can grab his rifle and step foot in the woods, starting with hunter safety.

Because she is Jewish, 14 year-old Piri has been held prisoner in Nazi concentration camps for two years. She is freed when Bergen-Belsen is liberated, but she is very ill and has deep psychological scars. In a voice full of innocence and courage, Piri tells how she got through the first years after the Holocaust.

With murderous poachers targeting rare blue bear cubs, Alaska trooper Poppy Walsh and her K-9 partner, Stormy, will do whatever it takes to stop them. But having to team up with her ex-fiancé, park ranger Lex Fielding, will be Poppy’s biggest test. When the poachers go after Lex’s young son, can Poppy and Lex overcome their unresolved past…and survive a killer’s sights?

3:47 a.m. That's when they come for Wren Clemmens. She's hustled out of her house and into a waiting car, then a plane, and then taken on a forced march into the desert. This is what happens to kids who've gone so far off the rails, their parents don't know what to do with them anymore. This is wilderness therapy camp. Eight weeks of survivalist camping in the desert. Eight weeks to turn your life around. Yeah, right.

Twelve-year-old April Clark is passionate about two things: woodworking and hunting, both skills learned from her beloved grandfather. But this year, GrandJack is recovering from a health problem and can’t join the trip to turkey camp. He tells her that a different sort of trip can still be great and gives her his prize box call to bring for luck. On the day of the hunt, April is determined to land the biggest, best tom she can. But her insistence on only getting the best turkey leads her to make a big mistake.

Twins Harley and Rhiannon Hummingbird have always been competitive. But there's one thing the siblings can agree on—they can't wait to travel from their Oklahoma home to their grandparents’ new cabin in northern Wisconsin. Both Harley and Rhiannon are looking forward to a week of swimming, boating, and most importantly, fishing.