Brooks takes a remarkable shard of history and brings it to vivid life. In 1665, a young man from Martha's Vineyard became the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College. Upon this slender factual scaffold, Brooks has created a luminous tale of love and faith, magic and adventure.

 

by Melanie Benjamin

The morning of January 12, 1888, was unusually mild, following a punishing cold spell. It was warm enough for the homesteaders of the Dakota territory to venture out again, and for their children to return to school without their heavy coats-leaving them unprepared when disaster struck. At just the hour when most prairie schools were letting out for the day, a terrifying, fast-moving blizzard blew in without warning. 

 

by Carys Davies

When widowed mule breeder Cy Bellman reads in the newspaper that colossal ancient bones have been discovered in the salty Kentucky mud, he sets out from his small Pennsylvania farm to see for himself if the rumors are true: that the giant monsters are still alive and roam the uncharted wilderness beyond the Mississippi River. 

 

by Jim Fergus

Based on actual historical events, this novel follows the indomitable May Dodd as she travels to the Cheyenne, becomes the bride of Little Wolf, chief of that tribe, and struggles with living in and being loyal to two different worlds.

 

by Sarah Gailey

Contained within this volume is an 1890s America that might have been: a bayou overrun by feral hippos and mercenary hippo wranglers from around the globe. It is the story of Winslow Houndstooth and his crew. It is the story of their fortunes. It is the story of his revenge.

by Winston Groom

Up-by-the-bootstraps Irish immigrant-turned-railroad baron John "the Colonel" Shaughnessy learns his ranching operation in Chihuahua, Mexico, is being threatened by Pancho Villa and his rebels.

by Ron Hansen

Jesse James was a fabled outlaw, a charismatic, spiritual, larger-than-life bad man whose bloody exploits captured the imagination and admiration of a nation hungry for antiheroes. Robert Ford was a young upstart torn between dedicated worship and murderous jealousy, the "dirty little coward" who coveted Jesse's legend. 

 

by Andrew Hilleman
 

Set in 1930s Reno, in which two very different women seeking divorces meet and form an unlikely friendship that is complicated by the handsome young ranch hand who befriends both -- and who finds his life unexpectedly upturned by one.

 

by William W. Johnstone

When Smoke Jensen takes Sally Reynolds as his lawfully wedded wife, they return to Colorado. She is ready to embrace her husband's past, and welcome his friend Preacher into the family. 

 

by Joe R. Lansdale

Nat Love, the one and only Deadwood Dick of the dime novel era, writes down his version of certain events, straightening out numerous misconceptions raised in the popular and sanitized dime novels

 

by Larry McMurtry

An English lord, accompanied by his beautiful mistress, teams up with Charles Goodnight to found a vast cattle ranch near Palo Duro Canyon, Texas and fails. Observing Goodnight from the sidelines are Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, who, after a brief stint with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, drift down to Tombstone, where Wyatt's brothers, Virgil and Warren, have taken up the law and saloon-keeping, respectively.

 

 

by Robert Olmstead

The story begins in the summer of 1916, a few months after Pancho Villa's attack on Columbus, N.M. Officer Napoleon Childs has led a U.S. Army expedition deep into the Mexican desert in pursuit of this chimerical figure. The sun is punishing, the landscape is daunting and chasing the spookily elusive Villa is beginning to show on Napoleon's men.

 

 

by Mary Doria Russell

John Henry Holliday grows up in Georgia devoted to his tubercular mother who fosters his love of literature and music before her early death. A promising dental career in Atlanta ends when he is diagnosed with tuberculosis at age 22, and he heads west for his health. By 1878, when Doc turns up in Dodge City with his mistress Kate, professional gambling has eclipsed his dental career.

 

by Tatjana Soli

The lives of Gen. George Armstrong Custer, his wife, Libbie, and a 15-year-old Kansas farmer's daughter converge in this historical novel about the American frontier.

 

An epic novel that follows a web of complex family alliances and culture clashes in the Cherokee Nation during the aftermath of the Civil War, and the unforgettable woman at its center.