WESTERNS

Shades of Zane Gray and Louis L'Amour! The Western novel is still out there, although it may not be your father's western anymore! The genre of Western-related books has grown up, and you will find a new mix of serious historical fiction relating to the Western movement period in American history, humorous new outlooks on exactly who won the West and how, as well as cross-genre mixes such as western-mysteries and western-romances.

Shalom on the Range portrays the romantic Wild West with historical accuracy, realistic action, and irreverent humor. David Goldstein is a railroad detective investigating a train robbery near Denver, Colorado in 1870. His journey exposes him to different forms of anti-Semitism and makes him question his preconceived notions of what it means to be a Jew and a human being.

Michael S. Katz, an attorney and former history teacher, has been writing and editing since 2002. Shalom On The Range represents the first in a series.

"Think Louis L'Amour meets Jerry Seinfeld. ... An irreverent, quirky and fast-paced non-traditional Western read." ~ Johnny D. Boggs, Spur Award-winning author of Camp Ford and East of the Border

"A tenderfoot Jewish railroad detective is sent west to investigate a train robbery, where he grapples with anti-Semitism, culture shock, and plenty of misadventure. This one is a fast paced 'kosher' Western with plenty of action, some unexpected twists, and more than a few laughs." ~ Roundup Magazine

Learn more about Shalom on the Range, Michael Katz, and Strider Nolan Publishing at the author's website.

To Truckee's Trail is the greatest frontier adventure...which no one has ever heard about! In 1844, 50 men, women and children set out for California. They walked two thousand miles, across trackless plain and desert, with nothing to rely on but each other. A harrowing true adventure that took place before the more famous Donner Party disaster.

Celia Hayes was brought up in an eccentric, baby-boom family, and earned a degree in English before a thirst for adventure led her to enlist in the USAF. She trained as a radio/television broadcaster, and served in a wide assortment of duties. She is currently working on her next novel.

"Getting the wagon train through the mountain pass though was only one of the major challenges this strong group of men and woman overcame. Soon , winter would be upon them, and time and supplies were running short." ~ ArmchairInterviews.com

"A good wife will re-load for you, a great one will take up a knife and slit your enemies' throats."

Learn more about To Truckee's Trail, Celia Hayes, and her other works at the author's website.

To the Ends of the Earth begins three years after the triumphal return of the Lewis & Clark Expedition, and Meriwether Lewis never felt less like a hero. Trapped in a thankless political job, he's drinking too much and spending money like there's no tomorrow. When he's called to a mysterious meeting, Lewis hopes for a new adventure that will turn his life around. Instead, he finds himself drawn into a conspiracy to put him and William Clark at the head of a new American empire. Lewis has his faults, but he's no traitor ... and suddenly Lewis the explorer becomes the hunted. As for Clark, he's willing to risk everything to save his best friend from dishonor and disgrace. In the end, neither man can imagine the price to pay for their loyalty to each other and to their country. History and fiction merge seamlessly in this thrilling historical novel based on one of America's greatest unsolved mysteries. Lewis and Clark's last journey is a classic story of honor, vengeance, and redemption.

Frances Hunter is actually two sisters, Mary Clare and Elizabeth Clare, who have put their lifelong love of storytelling to work writing historical fiction. They live in Austin, Texas.

"Gripping...Full of gritty historical detail and raw imagery that rings true across the years...Historical fiction at its best." ~ Midwest Book Reviews

"Adventure, interesting settings, a little romance, blood and gore, and characters who live life largely ... a page-turner." ~ Historical Novels Review Online

Learn more about Frances Hunter and the history behind Lewis and Clark's last journey at the author's website.

Fly, Little Bird, Fly and Beyond the Orphan Train relate the compelling story about two boys, ages 5 and 7, who find themselves in an orphanage, then are put on a train and sent west to work as farmhands and have to learn life's lessons the hard way, on their own.

Donna Nordmark Aviles is the granddaughter of Oliver Nordmark, the real life protagonist of her two novels. She lives with her husband Bob and their children Carlo, James and Estella in Hockessin, Delaware. She enjoys speaking to school students and organizations about the Orphan Train Movement.

“It’s very American – their journeys to find their places in the world. Donna tells the truth of it. I’m attracted to true stories and these have a lot of heart. When you get into the minutiae of characters you find a wellspring of drama, humor, and adventure. Donna’s books transport you back in time. It’s a really interesting part of our history that never really has been written about, but I think it will appeal to a large audience.” ~ William Rotko, Screenwriter BREACH (Universal Pictures)

Great News:

The screen rights to Fly, Little Bird, Fly and Beyond the Orphan Train have been optioned by Los Angeles screenwriter William Rotko (BREACH, Universal Pictures). He will now work to bring the story of Oliver Nordmark and the Orphan Train Movement to the big screen for family viewing.

To learn more about Donna Nordmark and her Orphan Train series, visit the author's website.

How do you handle a crazy jackass? Eddie knows. If you asked Eddie, he'd tell you pigs can fly and show you where to find real mammoth bones. Take his word for it when he tells you always to bet on the bear. These are things he learned while dreaming of becoming a cowboy in West Texas during the Depression. Through Eddie, the hero of Tales of a Texas Boy, we find that growing up is less about maturity and more about roping your dreams. Hold on tight. It's a bumpy ride.

Marva Dasef was born in Eugene, Oregon. She graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in Technical Communications. She spent the next umpteen years working as a technical writer and programmer/analyst. In 2005, she gave up all that glamour for the solitary life of a fiction writer.

"With the help of her father’s testaments, Dasef recreates the era with real clarity. She conjures the characters and landscape until you can hear that southern drawl and taste the dust in your mouth." ~ Ed Cox, author and critic for Sam’s Dot Publishing

"A lovely set of tales, read in one sitting. I couldn’t put the book down. With a wonderful voice throughout, Ms. Dasef brought sadness, humor, and contentment to my day." ~ Cocktail Reviews

For more information on Tales of a Texas Boy, Marva Dasef, and her other works, see the author's website.

It's 1863, and the United States is in the midst of the Civil War when mixed-blood Jack Gaston is called back from Harvard University to his beloved Creek Nation. He is surprised to find that not only has he been elected to be a chief in the House of Warriors, he has also been conscripted as an officer in the Confederate Army. Gaston soon learns that the Civil War in Indian Territory is more than Confederate against Federal-it is tribe against tribe and family against family. This little-known corner of the Civil War was played out in the fields of the Creek Nation in what is now eastern Oklahoma. In a rich portrayal of period and place, The Confederate War Bonnet is an evocative historical novel that helps to answer how Indians became involved in the Civil War, why they joined Confederate forces, and how the experience shaped their future in America.

Jack Shakely is a fourth-generation Oklahoman of Creek descent. Shakely is a former journalist whose family owned newspapers in the small Oklahoma towns of Okemah, Okmulgee, Tahlequah, and Weleetka. He is president emeritus of the California Community Foundation in Los Angeles.

"Throughout the story, Jack Gaston maintains his dignity while fighting for a lost cause, provides for his people who are on the verge of starvation, and writes letters to leaders in Washington to recognize his people as a sovereign nation. This last service landed him in a Federal prison on Governor's Island in New York. Jack Shakely, who is of Creek descent, has no axe to grind, and his portrayal of Jack Gaston shows that. The story is a positive one told with grace and humor, but it also strikes the right chord when the hardships of war descend upon the Creek Nation." ~ Mary Simonsen, author of Pemberley Remembered

Read an excerpt from The Confederate War Bonnet or learn more about this topic at the author's website.

Joseph Levine and his granddaughter, Mary Jane, run a small weekly newspaper in newly settled Fargo, Dakota Territories. Following Papa's bout with illness, he puts an ad in the Minneapolis Tribune for an assistant. At the most opportune time, handsome, meticulous Johathan Bohner appears. Jonathan and Mary Jane get off on the wrong foot from the start, but before long their sparks turn to kindling, and love begins to heat up. Jonathan soon lets it slip that he has an ulterior motive, which he calls his "crusade," and he challenges Mary Jane to seek for her crusade as well. With the appearance of a minister from Chicago and a schoolteacher from Rochester, MN, life in Fargo blossoms. Even Libbie and Col. George Custer put in an unexpected appearance. When Jonathan goes to help the Indians out on the prairie, fate steps in and Mary Jane fears she has lost her true love. Can these Dakota Printers possibly find a future together on the prairie in the 1870s?

During her lifetime Janet Elaine Smith has been a missionary (who now writes romances), a wife (of one husband only), a mother (of three now-adult people, who refuse to be called "children"), a musician (of piano, organ and accordian), a Tupperware saleswoman (until the squirrels ate her sample kit), a teacher (of genealogy and creative writing), a translator (of Spanish, although she knows enough of a few other languages to get her in trouble), a social worker (in the strict sense of the word, not just being a "social creature"), a magazine writer (with over 2,000 published articles to her credit), a survivor (of the Great Flood of the Millennium in Grand Forks, ND in 1997), and that is just for starters.

"How good does it get? Not much better than Dakota Printer. The characters are genuine, honest-to-goodness folks. You'll love them all, especially Papa Joseph Levine and Beulah and Mary Yane. That's what Beulah calls Mary Jane. Beulah is Scandinavian and a trip to behold. She is one of those secondary characters that takes the stage and steals the show. The romance between Mary Jane and Jonathan Bohner is tempered yet hot in the heart. It's one of those affairs you'd be happy for your daughter to encounter." ~ S.K. Hamilton, author of The Kahills of Willow Walk

Learn more about Dakota Printer and the prolific author Janet Elaine Smith at the author's website.

So You Wanna Be a Cowgirl is a personal narrative. I was a forty-year-old divorced woman from Maine, running my own business when I applied for a summer job at Rimrock Dude Ranch in Wapiti Valley, outside of Cody, Wyoming. My horse and I were hired by Glenn Fales, an old-time cowboy and ex-rodeo bronc rider who, with his wife Alice, had owned the ranch for thirty-five years. I worked at Rimrock as a horse wrangler and guide. This is my story. My first experience wrangling horses found me galloping over a headwall and down a steep bluff amidst a herd of 100 horses. After learning to guide with my own horse Razan, meeting a bear, and climbing switchbacks up Table Mountain, we nearly slipped 50 feet down into the Shoshone River.

Patricia Gott is an adventurous lady from Maine who believes her destiny is what she makes it. Never one to sit back and "wish she could" -- she knows she can and gets out and proves it!

"One of the best features of 'Cowgirl' is being able to visualize exactly what the author is describing. She writes and you see. When she and her fellow wranglers are leading a group of ranch guests through the mountains, to the rivers, and just around the ranch, their interactions and conversations come off the page and into your mind surrounded by the aura of Wyoming." ~ Laura Wiley Ashton

Learn more about Patricia Gott and her adventures in Wyoming and Egypt at the author's website.

Erwin A. Thompson's Westerns paint a moral universe in which courage, humor, and wit triumph and love unites and conquers all. Cattle Country and Back Trail--both set in Wagon Wheel County, six years apart--show the threat of bloody range wars, powered by greed, and probe strength of individual integrity, romantic partnership, family, and community.

Erwin A. Thompson was born November 9, 1915, in Schuyler County, Illinois. He is a poet, novelist, fiddler, noted folk artist, and hoe-down square dance caller. He has lived on the bluffs of the Mississippi River for nine decades in the house that his grandfather built in 1863.

“Each chapter reads like an episode reminiscent of . . . Gun Smoke or Bonanza.” ~ Reader Views

"With crispness and gentle wit, Erwin Thompson's stories take us back to earlier times then give us nurture for the return trip to the present. A keen observer of people and their ways, his words help us enter and live those stories with him." ~ Jane Kirkpatrick, Wrangler Award-winning author of A Sweetness to the Soul and A Clearing in the Wild

Lone Star State Of Death is the intriguing tale of journalist Samantha Slater in her new move to a small town in Texas in the 1880's and immediate assignment to cover a local murder mystery.

Bobbi A. Chukran has been a poet, artist, writer and photographer since she was very young. She was encouraged to follow her dreams by her grandfather, Howard Winston Allen, Sr., a Dallas landscape artist.

"Lone Star State Of Death is very highly recommended reading for mystery buffs with a preference to murder mysteries featuring an inventive tale of deceit, thrills, and colorful characters." ~ Midwest Book Review

Learn more about this book and read more of Bobbi Ann Chukran's writing on her blog.