Clint has been running a ranch by himself since his father's death. It's backbreaking work. He needs something to loosen up his sore, tense muscles before his wedding, though massages aren't the manliest thing he's ever done. Thanks to a gift card he got at the bachelor party, he decides to give it a shot. He doesn't know what to expect, but once he meets Sophie, he realizes she's a lot more than meets the eye. What she gives him is no ordinary massage but a hefty dose of reality and a full-body feast of pleasures he never knew existed.
Saddle up and head west with three women and three separate inspirational journeys...to a better life and frontier men.
The bloody Las Cuevas War robbed Alejandra Diaz of her father, her fiancé, and her home - and left her with an intense hatred for men in uniform. She escapes across the border with her almost-mother-in-law and finds work on a quiet Texas ranch. The place seems like the safe haven she's been looking for...until she meets the rancher's tall, handsome brother, who wears the soldier's badge of a Texas Ranger....
Bennett Weston doesn't want a wife - instead, he wants a helper. The easiest way to find one is through an advertisement for a bride. When Grace shows up ready to marry him, he's not going to ask too many questions. At least, not until someone from Grace's past arrives in town, looking to collect on an old debt. Will the two of them be able to overcome Bennett's reluctance and Grace's deceit?
Bored socialite Tessa craves adventure and finds it when she becomes a mail order bride to Montana rancher and widowed father Dean Samuels. Can this pair - as different as night and day - find love?
Tan and the Governor continue the struggle for Arizona, to secure the border to the south, and put an end to the greatest danger Arizona's people have faced. It's a wild ride, from the desert in the south to the beauty of the Red Rock country in the north, all to stop one man.
There was only one female marshal in the Indian Nations under Judge Issac Parker...Deputy US Marshal F.M. Miller. She teams up with Bass Reeves in Bass and the Lady and goes undercover to stop a new gang of murdering rustlers. Bass has an arrest warrant for his own son...for murder.
The old cowboys try to take a herd of cattle north to the rail head.
Mistreated, disheartened, and trapped, Fallon Ashby unexpectedly found the chance of swift deliverance at the hand of a wealthy landowner. The mysterious deliverer offered Fallon escape from unendurable circumstances. Thus, Fallon chose to marry Trader Donavon, a man who concealed his face within the dark shadows of an ominous black hood - a man who unknowingly held her heart captive.
In this novella, Maribelle is asked to leave the orphanage at age 18. She isn't sure where to go or what to do, so she jumps at the chance to ride the Orphan Train and help take care of the 24 children. At the final stop in Missouri, she is once again concerned about her future return to Boston, but when a handsome man asks if he can "adopt" her to help take care of "Connie", she immediately agrees. Will Maribelle, "Belle", find a home and love in Missouri or have to return to the orphan life in Boston?
Them Dakota Territories is an outlaw's paradise, untamed and uncivilized, that's what I heard. It's a bad place fer a person to be going to, if you ask me. They say that this Judge Renfro is what you call a hanging judge. They say he hung a feller one time just to see how long his legs would kick until he died.
Once the world was beautiful and full of people. Cities filled the landscape and buildings reached the sky. But now, after The Wandering, very few portions of the old world remain, and more of the surviving fragments of a glorious past disappear every day.
Tyler is too busy mourning the loss of his fiancée to take much notice of anyone else. When Antoinette shows up at his family's hotel looking to marry him, he couldn't be more surprised. Will Antoinette's quiet resolve and dignified attitude finally win him over and heal his grief?
When the local town drunk sees a murder committed on Boot Hill on Halloween night, will anyone pay any attention to his story? Sheriff Joe Grubbs, though skeptical, investigates and finds the new grave. Now, he has a job to do and risks losing the love of his life doing it. It's a harrowing Halloween night in Haleyville, Texas.
The pungent smell of urine and manure filled the air. The Texas sky was powder blue, the fiery sun scorched man and beast alike. The screaming crowd of onlookers were on their feet, but neither Rowdy nor Diablo could hear them. Their total concentration was on each other. Today, the rogue Brahma bull was determined not to just throw Rowdy, but to kill the cowboy.
Moss Partridge has just had a very rude awakening. The last he remembers, it was 1864, and he was a paroled Union soldier stopping off in Denver on his way home to his wife and child in Montana. Now it's a dozen years later, he's the town drunk in Mirage, Colorado, and he has no memory of those lost years. Something sure must have happened, because there are people trying to kill him and two Indian children who are following him everywhere he goes - and, apparently, deciding whether he should live or die.
Clementine is the oldest girl in the family, and they can't afford to feed the kids they've already got. Making sacrifices for her family, she agrees to marry a man thousands of miles away when the church finds her a match through a mail-order bride catalog.
Emily is attending her brother Jake's wedding in Wild Water Creek. Yet, that is not the true reason for her visit. She is looking to escape from the horror that awaits her in the city. Back home in the city, she is engaged to a rich and powerful man; she must return straight after the service for her own wedding. Landon is the black sheep of the Creek. Many believe that he secured his ranch by cheating at cards one night. Yet Landon could be just the escape route that Emily is seeking.
After her husband dies in the Civil War, Fanny Ryan is well cared for by his extensive family in Boston. However, they would see her alone and mourning her late husband rather than finding her own happiness once more. After answering an ad from a man in the Wyoming territory seeking a bride, Fanny is finally certain that a new life will be hers.
Abby Johnson and her younger cousin, Charlotte, are heading to Jamestown, North Dakota. Charlotte has arranged her own wedding to a man she has never met. Her more sensible older cousin cannot believe that she has become a mail order bride. Their journey is shared with a strange frontier rancher who enthralls the young women with tales of the west. As Charlotte casts her eyes on the man she will marry in a few hours for the first time, Abby is shocked that the stranger rancher is heading for the same destination.
In one of his most riveting novels of adventure, America's favorite storyteller follows the treacherous trail of an outlaw determined to make his big strike and then disappear into a new life. But can a wrong turn be made right and can the heart of a hardened man still be moved by a second chance at happiness? Here's a hard-hitting, uniquely American tale of raw courage, haunting regret, and hope against all odds as only Louis L'Amour can tell it.
Larry McMurtry's American epic, set in the late 19th century, tells the story of a cattle drive from Texas to Montana, a drive that represents not only a daring foolhardy adventure, but a part of the American Dream for everyone involved.
When Luke McCutcheon finds Faith Brown about to give birth in her rickety wagon, his first instincts are to ride for help. Instead, he stays and delivers a beautiful baby girl. Unable to leave the pretty young widow and her little son and newborn unprotected in the Montana wilderness, he brings them along on his family's cattle drive, to the absolute delight of the other friendly cowboys.
Jessie Kincaid was fifteen and innocent when Cameron asked her to the prom. She lost her heart that night, but his plans didn't change. He left their small town to pursue his dreams. Seventeen years later, a trip home leads Cameron McCade back to Salt Fork, Texas and the newly widowed Jessie Divine. Since his return, the fire between them burns as hot as ever. Can they take up where they left off? Can Jessie risk her heart again?
Appaloosa, the hometown of Territorial Marshals Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch, continues to prosper, but with prosperity comes a slew of new trouble: carpetbaggers, gamblers, migrants, peddlers, drifters, thieves, and whores, all boiling in a cauldron of excess and greed. And there's a new menace in town: a wealthy, handsome easterner - and the owner of Appaloosa's new casino - Boston Bill Black.
Fresh out of medical school, John McCutcheon finds his stagecoach under attack by brutal outlaws. With the help of a feisty acquaintance Lily Anthony, he manages to fend off the assault. Lily is attracted to the charming cowboy-doctor, with his chiseled good looks and teasing ways, then heartbroken to learn he's engaged to be married.
One Thousand White Women is the story of May Dodd and a colorful assembly of pioneer women who travel to the Western prairies in 1875 to intermarry among the Cheyenne Indians.
Sixteen-year-old John Grady Cole's grandfather has just died, his parents have permanently separated, and the family ranch, upon which he had placed so many boyish hopes, has been sold. Rootless and increasingly restive, Cole leaves Texas, accompanied by his friend Lacey Rawlins, and begins a journey across the vaquero frontier into the badlands of northern Mexico.
Part epic of Texas, part classic coming-of-age story, part unflinching portrait of the bloody price of power, The Son is an utterly transporting novel that maps the legacy of violence in the American West through the lives of the McCulloughs, an ambitious family as resilient and dangerous as the land they claim. Spring, 1849: Eli McCullough is 13 years old when a marauding band of Comanches takes him captive. Brave and clever, Eli quickly adapts to life among the Comanches, learning their ways and waging war against their enemies, including white men - which complicates his sense of loyalty and understanding of who he is.
The well-educated daughter of a lawyer, Trudy Bauer, arrives at the St. Louis based Mail-Order Brides of the West agency full of excitement for an adventure of a lifetime. She befriends the agency's maid, Evie Davenport, and the two form a strong and lasting friendship. They vow to stay in contact through letters when Evie takes hold of her destiny and arranges a marriage on the sly. Each brave young woman is ready to face whatever an unknown groom and life in Montana can throw her way.
Mattie Ross, a 14-year-old girl from Dardanelle, Arkansas, sets out to avenge her Daddy who was shot to death by a no-good outlaw. Mattie convinces one-eyed "Rooster" Cogburn, the meanest U.S. marshal in the land, to ride along with her. In True Grit, we have a true American classic, as young Mattie, as vital as she is innocent, outdickers and outmaneuvers the hard-bitten men of the trail in a legend that will last through the ages.
At the turn of the 20th century, in a rural stretch of the Pacific Northwest, a reclusive orchardist, William Talmadge, tends to apples and apricots as if they were loved ones. A gentle man, he's found solace in the sweetness of the fruit he grows and the quiet, beating heart of the land he cultivates. One day, two teenage girls appear and steal his fruit from the market; they later return to the outskirts of his orchard to see the man who gave them no chase. Feral, scared, and very pregnant, the girls take up on Talmadge's land and indulge in his deep reservoir of compassion.
Son of a feared fighting man, Barnabas Sackett inherited his father's fiery temper, sense of justice and warrior skills. Declared an outlaw in his native England, Barnabas set his daring sights on the opportunity of the New World. The ruthless piracy of the open seas and the unknown dangers of the savage American wilderness lay before him. And so did the thrill of discovery and the chance to establish a bold new future if he survived.
The Lonesome Gods is Louis L'Amour's biggest and most important historical novel to date, a sweeping adventure of the California frontier. Here is the fascinating story of Johannes Verne, a young man left to die by his vengeful grandfather, rescued by outlaws and raised in part by the Indians of the desert.
When Andrew Apperley visits his brother David in the East, he brings along an unexpected companion. Andrew's giant wolf dog, Comanche, is so wild that he has to be chained up for the safety of others. However, when the Apperley brothers come across a man drowning in the East River, Comanche breaks loose from his chains and swims to the man's rescue.
In the year 1833, two young brothers journey into the Wild West to seek their fortune; little do they know they're embarking on the adventure of their lives. Expecting to stumble upon riches as they make their way westward, sixteen-year-old Dillon Griffith and his older brother Owen instead encounter hardship after hardship in the form of Indian raids, bloodthirsty villains, robbery, and kidnapping. Packed full of riveting action, gore, and vengeance, Deadville paints a thrilling - and historically pristine - picture of life in the Old West.
The Whip is inspired by the true story of Charlotte "Charley" Parkhurst (1812-1879) who lived most of her extraordinary life as a man. As a young woman in Rhode Island, she fell in love with a runaway slave and had his child. The destruction of her family drove her west to California, dressed as a man, to track the killer. Charley became a renowned stagecoach driver for Wells Fargo, during the renowned California 'gold rush' days. She killed a famous outlaw, had a secret love affair, and lived with a housekeeper who, unaware of her true sex, fell in love with her.
It was just a godforsaken mountainside, but no place on earth was richer in silver. For a bustling, enterprising America, this was the great bonanza. The dreamers, the restless, the builders, the vultures - they were lured by the glittering promise of instant riches and survived the brutal hardships of a mining camp to raise a legendary boom town. But some sought more than wealth. There was Val Trevallion, a loner haunted by a violent past, and Grita Redaway, a radiantly beautiful actress driven by an unfulfilled need.
We join Texas Rangers August McCrae and Woodrow F. Call as they are just beginning to deal with the perplexing tensions of adult life -- Gus, and his great love, Clara Forsythe, Call and Maggie Tilton, the young whore who loves him -- when they enlist with a Ranger troop in pursuit of Buffalo Hump, the great Comanche war chief; Kicking Wolf, the celebrated Comanche horse thief; and a deadly Mexican bandit king with a penchant for torture.
In Dead Man's Walk, Gus and Call are not yet 20, young men coming of age in the days when Texas was still an independent republic. Enlisting as Texas Rangers under a land pirate who wants to seize Santa Fe from the Mexicans, Gus and Call experience their first great adventure in the barren great plains landscape, in which arbitrary violence is the rule -- whether from nature, or from the Indians whose territory they must cross in order to reach New Mexico.<
In the year 1833, two young brothers journey into the Wild West to seek their fortune; little do they know they're embarking on the adventure of their lives. Expecting to stumble upon riches as they make their way westward, sixteen-year-old Dillon Griffith and his older brother Owen instead encounter hardship after hardship in the form of Indian raids, bloodthirsty villains, robbery, and kidnapping. Packed full of riveting action, gore, and vengeance, Deadville paints a thrilling - and historically pristine - picture of life in the Old West.
There will never be another Western writer like Louis L’Amour. A legendary author and indisputably the greatest storyteller in his genre of all time, L’Amour captivated millions of readers and has sold well over three hundred million copies of his works, which includes nearly ninety novels and countless short stories. Mistakes Can Kill You highlights an essential selection featuring nine of L’Amour’s earlier short stories, sometimes written under the pen name Jim Mayo, that exemplify the rugged morality of the best Western writing.
He is the Virginian-the first fully realized cowboy hero in American literature, a near-mythic figure whose idealized image has profoundly influenced our national consciousness. This enduring work of fiction marks the birth of a legend that lives with us still.
In the Redhawk Mining District, he is known as Johnny Montana. It is the name given to him by those who followed him to the Northwest gold fields in the spring of 1863. Now, with a harsh Montana winter about to descend upon them, all Johnny and his partners want to do is go home. And all that stands in their way is a highly organized gang of thieves and murderers. Others have tried to escape the Redhawk District with their summer's cache of gold, but none have succeeded. Now they are turning to one man, asking him to accomplish what heavily-armed parties have so far failed to achieve - get their gold out of Montana, before the outlaws come for it.
After a devastating betrayal leaves Ginny Parker broken and alone, she hastily agrees to marry a man she’s never met and start a new life in Eden Creek, Utah. Orrin Ghant only wants a woman to help raise his three daughters, and a companion with whom to share life in the Utah wilderness. But upon the arrival of Ginny, he soon finds his new wife has brought with her more than he could have hoped.
Texas, 1874. Years ago Will McMillan had fought in the open, next to his captain, Clayton Proffitt. Now he’s waging another war undercover, pretending to be a member of the notorious Walton Gang. But when a hostage situation goes awry and an innocent woman is in the middle of the fray, Will knows he must protect her no matter what happens. Even if his cover is blown. Even if they risk being killed by his gang or by the lawmen on their trail. Even if the woman he’s risking everything for will never love him back.
A collection of stories from the most famous Western author of all time! Desert Death-Song is a compilation of some of Louis L’Amour’s greatest stories, many of which might otherwise be difficult to find. Whether he was writing under his early pen name, Jim Mayo, or his own, L’Amour’s stories are unforgettable, touching on rough and rugged American ideals, and set in the untamable frontier of the Western United States.
Traveling to visit her uncle Nate at his Rancho del Encanto, Hope Farman, who gets thrown from her seat into the path of a stampeding herd, escapes with her life when she is rescued by Channing, a somewhat mysterious man who was born on the desert and has lived there ever since.
While their family’s wagon train stops for a rest, Jacob Milam goes hunting with his younger brother, Tom. They are hoping for a rabbit, a deer, or even a buffalo, but they haven’t managed to catch anything bigger than a rattlesnake when they see the Indian raiding party galloping over the plains. Jacob races back to camp, desperate to warn his parents, but it is already too late. Betrayed by their Indian guide, the settlers have been slaughtered. Jacob and Tom are the only survivors.
In "Gunman's Bluff," Cheyenne was challenged to a shootout by Danny and Chuck Martin. He managed to kill Danny and wound Chuck, but before he could get away, Chuck got a shot off and hit Cheyenne in the shoulder. Now Doc Lindus has told him that it might be quite some time until he has use of his right hand again, so he'd better develop his left. With the Martins out for blood, how's Cheyenne to defend himself?
Wyatt in Wichita fuses historical fact with fiction, following the adventures of the young Wyatt Earp. Following the tragic loss of his first wife in the Missouri of 1870 in his early days on the dark side of the West, Wyatt eventually makes his way to Ellsworth and Wichita, where by confronting corruption he would eventually finally find his life’s work as a tough lawman.Could Wyatt Earp have known Billy the Kid when the kid was really just that? Could Wyatt have met up with Wild Bill Hickok in Deadwood?
On his first trip to the West Zane Grey became friends with Buffalo Jones the "last of the plainsmen" as he called him in the book he subsequently wrote about him. Jones had been witness to the great herds of buffalo that had once ranged on the Great Plains and he had been a participant in the destruction of those herds. In early 1923 Grey decided that he would write the epic story of the thundering herds of buffalo the great hunt that decimated them and the battle between the Plains Indians and the buffalo hunters.
Speedy probably had a last name, but no one knows it--a young man, a loafer, a drifter, a tramp. He does not usually use a gun, although in "Nighthawk Trail" he does, but it is only an elaborate illusion. Speedy is regarded as one of the most dangerous men in the West. The object of his quest is to find the great horse Nighthawk, bought for $7,000 by old Joshua Crane.
A collection of stories capturing what it means to be a cowboy.
The great Calder empire stretched across the Montana plains as far as the eye could see. Everyone knew a Calder's word was law, and that one day Chase Calder would carry the family name to new glories. But for handsome, arrogant Chase Calder there was also beautiful Maggie O'Rourke. She came to him in innocence and stirred in him a deep, insistent longing.
For his 42 years on this Earth, John Wesley Hardin’s name was synonymous with outlaw. A killer at 15, in the next few years he became skilled enough with his pistols to back down Wild Bill Hickok in the street. By the time the law caught up with Hardin when he was 25, he had killed as many as 40 men and been shot so many times that, it was said, he carried a pound of lead in his flesh. In jail he became a scholar, studying law books until he won himself freedom, and afterward he tried to lead an upright life. It was not to be.
Neal Clark ramrod of the Circle C Ranch was in Cascade City to see the gunsmith when the Shelly gang attempted to hold up the bank. Neal rushed out of the shop and fired killing Buck Shelly and his son Luke. Buck's teenage son Ed was holding the horses. He escaped but was believed to be mortally wounded. At least that's what Neal thought - until he received a letter from Ed declaring that he’d be back to settle the score.
Idaho Territory, June 1887. A small-town judge takes his young daughter fishing, and she catches a man. Another body surfaces, then another. The final toll: over 30 Chinese gold miners brutally murdered. Their San Francisco employer hires Idaho lawman Joe Vincent to solve the case. Soon he journeys up the wild Snake River with Lee Loi, an ambitious young company investigator, and Grace Sundown, a metis mountain guide with too many secrets.
A haunting truth too terrible to share drives beautiful Susan to live as a nun, hiding the reality of her past even from her lifelong friend, Daniel. Growing up, Daniel was her protector and savior, yet when he returns to town, her orderly life is abruptly thrown into disarray. No longer is he the boy from her childhood, but a striking lawman, both dangerous and desirable. Determined to make Susan his wife, Daniel arouses her deepest passions and unlocks her darkest secrets.
A band of kill-crazy outlaws smash the bank in Caliche Bend, New Mexico. And by the fine white powder that covers everything - even the dead - everyone knows The Snowman has struck again: for this notorious bank robber uses bags of flour to stabilize the nitroglycerin used in his dynamite blasts.