Women Historic Western Fiction

Raised by guardians in Philadelphia, the Brinkman sisters have suddenly been bequeathed more than the truth about their late, estranged father - they've also inherited the Five Sisters Ranch, the dynasty he'd built for them in Eden, Colorado. It's theirs on one condition: to claim it, they must live on it for six months - a wilderness worlds away from the comforts of the city. For Belle Brinkman, her father's last wish could fulfill a dream she never knew she had.

1916. The two-street town of Wallace is not exactly what Ellen Webster had in mind when she accepted a teaching position in Wyoming, but within a year’s time she’s fallen in love—both with the High Plains and with a handsome cowboy named Charlie Bacon. Life is not easy in the flat, brown corner of the state where winter blizzards are unforgiving and the summer heat relentless. But Ellen and Charlie face it all together, their relationship growing stronger with each shared success, and each deeply felt tragedy.

After their mother dies, Haidie Richards and her younger brother, Boots, are put to work in an orphanage. Their father left four years earlier to find a gold mine in Colorado Territory, and since then he’s sent only three letters. Still, Haidie is certain that he is alive, has struck gold, and will soon send for them. But patience is not one of Haidie’s virtues and soon she and her brother make a break for it. Boots and Haidie, disguised as a boy, embark on a dangerous journey deep into Western territory.

It's February, 1852, and all around Chicago, Maggie sees postings soliciting "eligible women" to travel to the gold mines of Goosetown. A young seamstress with a small daughter, she has nothing to lose. She joins 43 other women and two pious reverends on the dangerous 2,000-mile journey west. None are prepared for the hardships they face on the trek or for the strengths they didn't know they possessed. Maggie discovers she’s not the only one looking to leave dark secrets behind.

Margaret "Peggy" Thomas and her husband, James, lead a simple and peaceful life; she tends to the farm while he works as sheriff in the nearby town of Bleak Knob. Their evenings are spent doing the thing they love most - being together. One afternoon, after picking up fabric at the general store, Margaret watches helplessly as James is gunned down on the sidewalk in front of her. Days of mourning turn into weeks and then years, filled with little more than grief and alcohol.

Logan Huett is a former army scout who discovers magnificent Sycamore Cañon in central Arizona, where he intends to homestead. With some trepidation, he wires East to the woman he had courted back in Missouri, proposing marriage. Lucinda Baker, a schoolteacher, accepts. But pioneer life proves very hard for her. Living is crude. She helps in the building of what will be their home but finds the loneliness where they have settled oppressive. The dangers are many and constant. But despite the hardships, despite the dangers, Lucinda remains strong.

In 1873, a Cheyenne chief offers President Grant the opportunity to exchange one thousand horses for one thousand White women, in order to marry them with his warriors and create a lasting peace. These women, "recruited" by force in the penitentiaries and asylums of the country, gradually integrate the way of life of the Cheyenne, at the time when the great massacres of the tribes begin.

Banished by her grandfather at the age of 18, Spring Lee has survived scandal to claim her own little slice of Paradise, Wyoming. She’s proud of working her ranch alone and unwilling to share it with a stranger - especially one like Garrett McCray, who makes her second-guess her resolve to avoid men. Garrett escaped slavery years ago and is now a reporter in Washington. He’s traveled west to interview Dr. Colton Lee for an article, yet it’s Lee’s fearless sister, Spring, who captures his interest.

Since their father’s death summoned Lavinia Brinkman and her four sisters to Eden, Colorado, Lavinia has been content with her new life. Well, almost. Lavinia’s heart’s desire - creating the elaborate hats she loves - doesn’t belong in this small town. How can she choose between the life she has and the life she wants? Especially when she’s so utterly vexed by the handsome scoundrel who’s just arrived in Eden.

Arizona Territory, 1871. Valeria Obregon and her ambitious husband, Raúl, arrive in the raw frontier town of Tucson hoping to find prosperity. Changing Woman, an Apache spirit who represents the natural order of the world and its cycle of birth, death, and rebirth, welcomes Nest Feather, a twelve-year-old Apache girl, into womanhood in Aravaipa Canyon.

A woman of courage makes an epic journey.

Take a 3,000-mile journey with Amanda Pearson as she leaves the disgrace of a broken engagement and joins the work at a Quaker mission in the western wilds. The trip is fraught with danger, and Amanda is near death before reaching her destination. Among those she meets are an Indian woman who becomes her first convert and a half-Indian trapper who seems to be her biggest critic. But love follows her into the wilderness and will determine the course of her future. You are sure to enjoy this historical romance adventure from New York Times best-selling author Wanda E. Brunstetter.

Included is the newly-written sequel, Woman of Hope, with Little Fawn’s story.

Raised as an orphan by a loving white couple, Little Fawn always felt something was missing from her life. She longs to take the news of Jesus to the Nez Perce Indians, but despite being a missionary herself, Little Fawn’s mother forbids it. Will White Wolf, her intended, support Little Fawn’s decision when she abruptly follows the tribe’s migration onto the Plains?

It's 1905, and the new century overflows with opportunities for the smart, the strong, the confident, and the determined. All words that describe Hope Birdwell to a T. Her first 20 years had their share of trouble and torment, but she's certain the next 20 hold only promise. Hope leaves her past behind and heads for Wyoming to take up homesteading. Never mind that she's alone in the world and has never known a real home in her life. Her name is Hope, and she's sure that a bright and independent future waits right around the corner.

When Bridget McQuarry comes to settle in Primrose Creek, she has nothing to lose; her husband, Mitch, was killed in the Civil War, and she has lost her family farm to ruinous Reconstruction taxes. With her baby son and a sister to care for, Bridget vows to make a new start out West. But when Mitch's best friend reappears in her life, he sparks a forbidden passion she thought was forever buried.

Sienna Lewis knows firsthand about being an Aussie battler, but she has her beautiful daughter, Zara, to keep fighting for. One day she dreams of giving Zara the life and big family she deserves. For now, Sienna can only focus on her work at the hospital. But when she connects with a new patient who has driven away nearly everyone in his life, she is astounded when he leaves her his sprawling Far-North Queensland property.

Josephine Wesley is a 17-year-old girl who is left for dead in the middle of the Rocky Mountains during the winter. Her house was ransacked and burned by a rogue band of Arapaho Indians in the 1860s. Her father was killed during the raid, and Josephine, her mother, and siblings were kidnapped. While traveling with the Indians, Josephine falls off her horse and is left behind. Her isolated experience of survival begins with the first night of fighting off freezing temperatures and a pack of wolves.

On the cusp of thirty, Ghanaian Londoner Whitney Appiah was born with a special gift. The massage therapist can physically sense where her clients’ trauma lies and heal them. But Whitney has no idea that she too, is suffering. Tragic events from her youth have left a terrible, unseen mark. When a dangerous encounter with the man she’s dating triggers a wave of fragmented recollections, Whitney embarks on a journey to reclaim her memories and the truth that is buried deep in her early years growing up in Kumasi, Ghana during the 1990s.

When her tinsmith father and brothers head West, Polish immigrant Marie Kotlarczyk has no choice but to go along. Family, after all, is family. The Dakota Territories are anything but welcoming to the Kotlarczyks, and as the months trip by, Marie must pick up the hammers she’s secretly desired but also feared. When she faces the skeptical people of Flats Town, the demands of the local Army commander, and her public failures, her inner voice grows destructively, forcing Marie to decide exactly who she is and what it means to be a woman smith.

Emma Brinkman is the most eligible bachelorette in town and staying that way. After learning twice that romance is a lie, she’s focused only on making the mine she and her sisters inherited a booming success. To do that, she’ll need to put her trust in a notorious scoundrel. But no matter how flirtatious, handsome, or persistent he may be, Emma is interested only in his expertise in coaxing gold from the earth. The illegitimate son of a duke, Beranger North is a reputed playboy and a self-made man who found his fortune excavating the rich and profitable American West.

In The Cowboy Takes a Wife, Desiree Parrish has two weeks to find a man to protect her from her abusive ex-husband. In The Unforgiving Bride, from the moment rancher Falcon Whitelaw sees Mara Ainsworth, she's the woman of his dreams - but she belongs to someone else. Then a tragic accident leaves her widowed - and she blames Falcon.

Wyoming Territory, April 1883: After a disastrous marriage, Sheriff Albert Preston never expects to fall in love again...until a feisty, take-charge young woman sneaks past his defenses. Now, he'd like nothing more than to make Susanna Robinson his wife. But when a train crashes just outside of town, the secrets it carries threaten to derail his plans for a happy future.