Women Writing the West WILLA Award Finalist From "the reigning royalty of Minnesota murder mysteries" (The Rake) comes a striking new heroine: a young Irish immigrant caught up in a deadly plot in nineteenth-century Deadwood When I was fifteen and my brother Seamus sixteen, we attended our own wake. Our family was in mourning, forced to send us off to America. The year is 1880, and of all the places Brigid Reardon and her brother might have dreamed of when escaping Ireland's potato famine by moving to America, Deadwood, South Dakota, was not one of them. But Deadwood, in the grip of gold fever, is where Seamus lands and where Brigid joins him after eluding the unwanted attentions of the son of her rich employer in St. Paul-or so she hopes. But the morning after her arrival, a grisly tragedy occurs; Seamus, suspected of the crime, flees, and Brigid is left to clear his name and to manage his mining claim, which suddenly looks more valuable and complicated than he and his partners supposed. Mary Logue, author of the popular Claire Watkins mysteries, brings her signature brio and nerve to this story of a young Irish woman turned reluctant sleuth as she tries to make her way in a strange and often dangerous new world. From the famine-stricken city of Galway to the bustling New York harbor, to the mansions of Summit Avenue in St. Paul, and finally to the raucous hustle of boomtown Deadwood, Logue's new thriller conjures the romance and the perils, and the tricky everyday realities, of a young immigrant surviving by her wits and grace in nineteenth-century America.

Heart of the West is a collection of 19 short stories highlighting the complicated relationship between men and women, law and order, honor and obligation. These compelling tales are filled with memorable characters and fascinating conflicts. In Heart of the West, O. Henry explores the illustrious region featuring cowboys, outlaws, rangers and sheepherders. It consists of 19 short stories celebrating the unique culture and happenings in the Old West. "Telemachus, Friend," follows an unconventional love triangle, while "The Caballero's Way" centers an unexpected tragedy fueled by jealousy and betrayal. This collection features a variety of tales ranging from sentimental romance to humorous adventure. O. Henry breathes new life into the American West with vivid plots and unforgettable characters. This diverse group of stories transports readers to a bygone era of rugged heroes and sinister villains. Originally published in 1904, Heart of the West epitomizes this extraordinary moment in time. With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Heart of the West is both modern and readable.

"There are whole lifetimes in these magical stories, laced with secrets and surprises and dreams and disappointments and humor. Like Gish's characters, most of us seek our salvation mostly in the wrong places, sometimes stumbling upon truth where we should have looked for it first -- in our hearts and in the search itself. Read these stories. They will help you find your way". (Tom Auer, Publisher, The Bloomsbury Review)

"Dreams of Quivira is written with honesty and a load of talent. There is a depth of characters here that we seldom find in short stories. Each story rings with haunting truth, some pain, and a redeeming message. A welcome addition of Gish's work". (Review: Rudolfo Anaya)

Robert Gish's eight stories of the old and new West speak of the search for a region of the mind and heart, as much as for the places in which his characters act out their personal dramas. For some the West remains a place of renewal and hope, like Coronado's Quivira, promising escape from wrong starts and thwarted desires and offering the possibility of transformation. For others it is the graveyard of expectations, where harsh truths and unwelcome realities must be faced.

Two stories deal with the transformations and disappointments of young men caught between their own needs for adventure and the demands of their families and communities. "The Quick and the Dead" tells of a first close encounter with death and spiritual transcendence. "Seeing the Elephant" is an exuberant coming-of-age story that explores the interplay between Hispanic and Anglo culture, between the masculine and the feminine, between innocence and experience. Other stories look into darker regions of the human heart. Writtenin a lyrical yet earthy style that reflects the dreams and ideals of his characters, Gish's stories probe the mysteries at the heart of human relationships.

A brutalized woman is left for dead. But dead is the one thing she isn't. With a stolen horse and rifle, she escapes into the mountains, and a small posse of her tormentors has to gear up and give chase--whether to beg forgiveness or shut her up for good, nobody knows. With detours through time, space and myth--not to mention into the minds of a pack of philosophical mules--Pity the Beast is a mind-melting feminist Western that pins a tale of sexual violence and vengeance to a canvas as wide and strange as America itself. It's a novel that turns our assumptions about the West, masculinity, good and evil, and the very nature of storytelling onto their heads, with an eye to the cosmic as well as the comic. It urges us to write our stories anew--if we want to avoid becoming beasts ourselves.

Bestselling winner of the 1986 Pulitzer Prize, Lonesome Dove is an American classic. First published in 1985, Larry McMurtry's epic novel combined flawless writing with a storyline and setting that gripped the popular imagination, and ultimately resulted in a series of four novels and an Emmy-winning television miniseries. Now, with an introduction by the author, Lonesome Dove is reprinted in an S&S Classic Edition.

Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry, the author of Terms of Endearment, is his long-awaited masterpiece, the major novel at last of the American West as it really was.

A love story, an adventure, an American epic, Lonesome Dove embraces all the West -- legend and fact, heroes and outlaws, whores and ladies, Indians and settiers -- in a novel that recreates the central American experience, the most enduring of our national myths.

Set in the late nineteenth century, Lonesome Dove is the story of a cattle drive from Texas to Montana -- and much more. It is a drive that represents for everybody involved not only a daring, even a foolhardy, adventure, but a part of the American Dream -- the attempt to carve out of the last remaining wilderness a new life.

Augustus McCrae and W. F. Call are former Texas Rangers, partners and friends who have shared hardship and danger together without ever quite understanding (or wanting to understand) each other's deepest emotions. Gus is the romantic, a reluctant rancher who has a way with women and the sense to leave well enough alone. Call is a driven, demanding man, a natural authority figure with no patience for weaknesses, and not many of his own. He is obsessed with the dream of creating his own empire, and with the need to conceal a secret sorrow of his own. The two men could hardly be more different, but both are tough, redoubtable fighters who have learned to count on each other, if nothing else.

Call's dream not only drags Gus along in its wake, but draws in a vast cast of characters:

-- Lorena, the whore with the proverbial heart of gold, whom Gus (and almost everyone else) loves, and who survives one of the most terrifying experiences any woman could have...
-- Elmira, the restless, reluctant wife of a small-time Arkansas sheriff, who runs away from the security of marriage to become part of the great Western adventure...
-- Blue Duck, the sinister Indian renegade, one of the most frightening villains in American fiction, whose steely capacity for cruelty affects the lives of everyone in the book...
-- Newt, the young cowboy for whom the long and dangerous journey from Texas to Montana is in fact a search for his own identity...
-- Jake, the dashing, womanizing exRanger, a comrade-in-arms of Gus and Call, whose weakness leads him to an unexpected fate...
-- July Johnson, husband of Elmira, whose love for her draws him out of his secure life into the wilderness, and turns him into a kind of hero...

Lonesome Dove sweeps from the Rio Grande (where Gus and Call acquire the cattle for their long drive by raiding the Mexicans) to the Montana highlands (where they find themselves besieged by the last, defiant remnants of an older West).

It is an epic of love, heroism, loyalty, honor, and betrayal -- faultlessly written, unfailingly dramatic. Lonesome Dove is the novel about the West that American literature -- and the American reader -- has long been waiting for.

Kazan, a hybrid of a wolf and a dog, has been passed around from owner to owner since he was a young puppy. Suffering a long line of abuse at the hands of his previous owners, Kazan felt unloved until he met the wife of his current owner, Thrope. Happy in his new home, Kazan travels to Northern Canada with his owners, where he runs into trouble again. After meeting an unsavory man named McCready, Kazan feels uneasy, and distrusts him immediately. When McCready attempts to harm Thorpe's wife, Kazan's suspicions are proven correct. After being forced to violence, Kazan runs away, fearing punishment for his actions. Heartbroken over leaving the first place he felt at home, Kazan wanders around the Canadian wilderness in search of a new family. Though he finds a pack of wild wolves and a kind mate named Grey Wolf, Kazan still feels loyal to humans, despite the risk of rejection from the wild wolves. When the pack encounter an elderly man, and a woman with a small child, Kazan must make a choice between them and his pack, torn between which he should defend. Full of heart-pounding action and wonderful adventure, Kazan By James Oliver Curwood is a touching action-adventure novel. Featuring complex and unique characters, Kazan explores nature and instinct through the rare perspective of an animal protagonists. Appealing to a variety of ages, Kazan is written in descriptive prose and depicts relatable themes of identity, family, and adversity. This edition of Kazan by James Oliver Curwood now features a new, eye-catching cover design and is printed in a font that is both modern and readable. With these accommodations, this edition of Kazan crafts an accessible and pleasant reading experience for modern audiences while restoring the original beauty of James Oliver Curwood's literature.

His name conjures images of the Wild West, of gunfights and gambling halls and a legendary friendship with the lawman Wyatt Earp. But before Doc Holliday was a Western legend he was a Southern son, born in the last days before the American Civil War and raised to be a Southern gentleman. His story sweeps from the cotton plantations of Georgia to the cattle country and silver boomtowns of the American West. The Saga of Doc Holliday comes to a dramatic conclusion in Dead Man's Hand. Tombstone, Arizona Territory, is the richest silver boom town in the country, promising fortunes to anyone daring enough to stand up to the stage coach robbers and rustlers who infest the nearby mountains. But John Henry Holliday is only trying to make a little money off the gambling tables when he's caught up in a secretive plot to stop the disturbances before they start a threatened war with Mexico. When suspicions rise and tempers ignite, the plot turns into a war between cowboys and lawmen, and he becomes a player in the most famous street fight in the Wild West.

Set in the American Southwest in the 1870's, "Forty Dollars" is a western with an eclectic blend of many different characters consisting of southern expatriates, carpetbaggers turned ranchers, Mexican bandits, working cowboys, and a biblical quoting bounty hunter. The central figure is Jake Romero, a white man raised by Lipan Apaches and trained to be a scout with uncanny abilities, some of which are mystical or shamanistic in nature.

Jake is hired by a wealthy rancher to track for a vigilante group whose mission is to rid the territory of cattle rustlers and horse thieves. After an eventful three weeks in which he witnesses a lynching, is involved in a shootout with a nest of rustlers, and has a disastrous encounter with Mexican bandits and an expatriated Southern General, Jake returns to the ranch to collect his pay. The rancher refuses to pay him, so Jake steals the man's prize stallion, stating that the rancher will get the horse back when Jake gets his forty dollars.

This sets the stage for a confrontation between Jake and everyone that wants a piece of him, for one reason or another.

First you had movies like, Outlaw of Josey Whales, and Posse, and a book called Cole, now you have, A Family of Out Laws. This book is about a black western, in which the family refuses to let anyone take their land. It has a mixture of Western and Southern cowboys combine. From one crooked town's mayor after another, bounty hunters, and outlaws, the killing just continues to grow. Just remember, there were some black cowboys who didn't take any s**t. Their stories just weren't documented, until now. So saddle up and enjoy the book.

The Civil War was a time of brutal conflict in Missouri, leaving deep scars that festered for years afterwards. Some killed for revenge and survival in battle, others out of malevolence. This is a story about redemption for some and continuation for others. William Quantrill's lieutenant, Jonathan, a venerated combatant, becomes an assassin in St. Louis after the Civil War. After agreeing to kill a powerful politician, he knows that he must disappear, fearing that those who hired him will not want to leave any loose ends. Ten years later, Will and Betsy McGee, a young couple who have recently inherited a small ranch in southwestern Missouri, come into Cassville for supplies. There they are encounter Chunk and Virgil Jennings, both local ruffians. Chunk, the town bully, is embarrassed when he picks a street fight with Will. The Jennings retaliate in the most nefarious manner. Will is left to die and is rescued by John Turner, the wealthiest rancher in the territory. In the Box-T bunkhouse, his body recuperates, but not his mind. The story evolves to an eventual confrontation between decency and depravity, pulling Jonathan out of the shadows.

Falcon Hunt awakens without a past, or at least not one he can recall. He's got brothers he can't remember, and he's interested in the prettiest woman in the area, Cheyenne. Only trouble is, a few flashes of memory make Falcon wonder if he's already married. He can't imagine abandoning a wife. But his pa did just that--twice. When Falcon claims his inheritance in the West, Cheyenne is cut out of the ranch she was raised on, leaving her bitter and angry. And then Falcon kisses her, adding confusion and attraction to the mix. Soon it's clear someone is gunning for the Hunt brothers. When one of his brothers is shot, Falcon and Cheyenne set out to find who attacked him. They encounter rustled cattle, traitorous cowhands, a missing woman, and outlaws that take all their savvy to overcome. As love grows between these two independent people, Falcon must piece together his past if they're to have any chance at a future.

Welcome to Unforgiven, New Mexico, a small western town filled with heart, cowboys, and second chances! Lorelei West has spent her whole life taking care of those she's loved--and after her sister is killed in a car accident, Lorelei steps up to raise the niece she never knew existed. Even though she has a full-time job and is taking care of her sick mother, Lorelei is more than happy to welcome Sawyer into her life. But things change when an unexpected cowboy shows up in Unforgiven wanting to claim custody of Sawyer. When cattleman Reese St. James learns he has an orphaned niece, he heads down to Unforgiven to bring Sawyer home. But the more time Reese spends with Lorelei and Sawyer, he longs for the close family ties he's always wanted. However, convincing independent Lorelai to take a chance on him won't be easy.

The final book of Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove tetralogy is an exhilarating tale of legend and heroism. Captain Woodrow Call, August McCrae's old partner, is now a bounty hunter hired to track down a brutal young Mexican bandit. Riding with Call are an Eastern city slicker, a witless deputy, and one of the last members of the Hat Creek outfit, Pea Eye Parker, now married to Lorena -- once Gus McCrae's sweetheart. This long chase leads them across the last wild streches of the West into a hellhole known as Crow Town and, finally, into the vast, relentless plains of the Texas frontier.

USA Today bestselling author Beverly Jenkins continues her captivating Women Who Dare series with a female rancher who forges her own path in the wake of the Civil War... Banished by her grandfather at the age of eighteen, 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. Clad in denim and buckskins instead of dresses, she's the most fascinating woman he's ever met. And he's certain she also feels the connection that sizzles between them. But when a shadow from Spring's past returns, all is on the line: her ranch, her safety-and this wild, fierce love.

"A rousing frontier saga."-The Washington Post "(Cooper's) sympathy is large, and his humor is as genuine--and as perfectly unaffected--as his art."-Joseph Conrad The Last of the Mohicans (1826) is the most popular of James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales. The continuing adventures of the peerless frontiersman Hawkeye, also known as Natty Bumppo among other monikers, is an unforgettable saga of the frontier life of early America. Set during the French and Indian Wars of mid-eighteenth century, this hair-raising historical novel opens as the French army is attacking Fort William Henry, a British fort in Western New York commanded by the withdrawn Colonel Munro. In the forest between Fort William Henry and another distant British outpost, Munro's daughters Alice and Cora, are escorted through the dangerous terrain by Major Heyward and a Huron Indian named Magua. When the group crosses their path with the white frontiersman Natty Bumppo and his Indian companions, Heyward is warned that they are being betrayed by Magua, and the group is not being led to Fort William Henry. Magua runs to the woods, and the group is lead to safety by Natty and the two remaining members of the Mohican tribe, Chingachgok and his son Uncas. Next morning, the group is attacked by a gang of the Huron tribe, and all are captured with the exception of Natty Bumppo and the mohicans. In the ensuing events of this extraordinary novel, the conflicts of battle, love, and race are unfolded against a thrilling adventure story. This classic of American literature has been adapted into numerous films, including the 1992 version starring Daniel Day-Lewis. With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of The Last of the Mohicans is both modern and readable.

In 1870s Utah, a beautiful young rancher becomes the object of desire for a local polygamist eager to make her one of his many wives. She successfully rejects his advances with the support of two notorious outcasts. Jane Withersteen is a part of a strict Mormon community in Utah. Despite the conservative nature of her peers, she is an independent rancher who lives alone on her family's land. When she catches the eye of Elder Tull, a prominent church leader, he plans to make her his next wife. He twists the law and manipulates members of the community to isolate Jane, hoping to wear her down. But the cowboy Bern Venters and infamous gunslinger, Jim Lassiter help to stop Tull in his tracks. Riders of the Purple Sage is a classic western written in Grey's signature prose. Once described as "the most popular western novel of all time" the story has been adapted across multiple mediums, including five feature films. With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Riders of the Purple Sage is both modern and readable.

Ever since the day he was deployed to fight in WWI, Daren Lane dreamed of the day that he returned home. Feeling that it had been several years since he left, Daren finally returns home to America, but soon realizes that it is not the home he remembers. Others have been able to move on from the war, causing Daren to question if his sacrifice of service was even worth it. Though he is attached to the ideals and behavior popular during the Victorian era, the rest of American society have moved on to the frivolous and fun attitude of the roaring twenties. When Daren notices that his younger sister is participating in this culture, drinking underage, gambling, and taking drugs, Daren is repulsed. Feeling that it is immoral and irreverent, he vows to put a stop to it. While organizing a way to combat his community's declining morals, the young soldier receives a troubling diagnosis due to an injury that he sustained during the war. While coming to terms with this discovery, Daren decides to dedicate his time to mentoring the youth, attempting to reform their behavior. With themes of cultural and generational divides, The Day of the Beast by Zane Grey is a somber and intriguing narrative that depicts a soldier's complicated integration back into civilian life. Written with descriptive and moving prose, The Day of the Beast is emotional and provides a unique and rare perspective on the cultural change of the roaring twenties. Adding to the fascinating discussions of this historic period, this Zane Grey masterpiece is captivating and relevant to a modern audience. This edition of The Day of the Beast by Zane Grey now features a new, eye-catching cover design and is printed in a font that is both modern and readable. With these accommodations, this edition of The Day of the Beast crafts an accessible and pleasant reading experience for modern audiences while restoring the original drama and depth of Zane Grey's work.

Worlding the Westerntakes the fiction of the Western United States as a focal point for a re-examination of the consequences of exceptionalism and closed borders in the Trump Era. At a time of bounded individualism, new nativism, climate emergency, and migration crises, author Neil Campbell argues that fiction offers opportunities to put the world back in ways that challenge the dark side of globalization and proposes worlding as a different and more open form of politics. A driving force in the book is a comment from the philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy, who wrote "the unity of the world is not one: it is made of a diversity, including disparity and opposition. It is made of it, which is to say that it is not added to it and does not reduce it. The unity of the world is nothing other than its diversity, and its diversity is, in turn, a diversity of worlds" (The Creation of the World or Globalization, 2007, p. 109). Diversity, disparity, and opposition are central to the dynamic frictional fiction I consider in this book. The American West provides a powerful test case (a laboratory of the future in Charles Bowden's term), in which these features - diversity, disparity, and opposition - are present and yet historically have often been so masked or denied in the rush towards unanimity and nation-building. In this book, the past is never lost or irrelevant, but rather circles around, re-emerging in lives as echoes and hauntings. Worlding is, therefore, a positive, critical concept through which to put the notion of a single world under pressure.

From 2014 to 2018, character comedy trio Sleeping Trees challenged themselves to bring the big screen to the stage, paying homage and reinventing gangster, western and sci-fi movies for audiences across the country. This book recounts how these shows were made, stories from when they were on tour, the trio's unique approach to devising fringe comedy, as well as the original scripts of the three award-winning plays. Mafia? Sleeping Trees deliver their version of every gangster film they've ever seen. Expect casinos, operas and bloodshed as the Banucci brothers find themselves in a situation stickier than most luxury cakes. Western? The Sleeping Trees find themselves slowly crisping under the sun of the Wild West, as gun-slinger Harry Sudds takes on bulls, scorpions and many other animals largely found in America. Sci-Fi? At a time where ancient planet Plutopia rules the galaxy, farmer Charlie Sprog is dragged from his quiet home planet and given one simple mission: SAVE THE UNIVERSE FROM TOTAL DESTRUCTION. So sit back, relax, grab some popcorn, and enjoy. Obviously if you need to put the popcorn down to hold the book then do, maybe just put the popcorn to the side, or hold it between your thighs? The important thing is that you read the book.