Town Histories

From the best-selling novelist of the American West, comes a novel of romance, danger, and life along the trail.

Decades of cuts to local government amidst rising concentrations of poverty have wreaked havoc on communities left behind by the modern economy. Forty years after the anti-tax revolution began protecting wealthy taxpayers and their cities, our high-poverty cities and counties have run out of services to cut, properties to sell, bills to defer, and risky loans to take. In The Fight to Save the Town, urban law expert and author Michelle Wilde Anderson offers unsparing, humanistic portraits of the hardships left behind in four such places.

When a centuries-old windmill in Seabreeze is set for restoration, a shocking discovery inside its walls uncovers hidden chambers, coded journals, and a Revolutionary War-era secret. Charlotte Greenfield and Luke Harrison race to unravel the truth behind a forgotten network of spies, but someone is determined to keep the past buried forever. With history whispering its secrets and danger closing in, Charlotte must solve the mystery—before the winds of the past turn deadly.

One of the bestselling novelists of the American West brings us a gripping tale of gold, greed, and vengeance.

The micro-nation Christiania has been threatened from without by the Danish government for decades. Nowadays, it is equally menaced by schisms from within.

It's March 2022 and Russian tanks are roaring across the vast, snow-dusted fields of Ukraine. Their destination: Voznesensk, a town with a small bridge that could change the course of the war. The heavily armed Russians are expecting an easy fight - or no fight at all. After all, Voznesensk is a quiet farming town, full of pensioners. But the locals appear to have other ideas. A gripping work of reportage that tells the story of a pivotal moment in Ukraine's war, this is a real-life thriller about ordinary people facing extraordinary circumstances with resilience, humour and ingenuity.

Mattie Reynolds made a promise to a dying Meg Boldrin to fulfill her last wishes, to mend the strained relationship with her son from beyond the grave. She would make the journey of her life by stagecoach over seven hundred miles to the small East Texas town of Chivalry, receiving a cavalier welcome. Her quick, persistent determination fouls her pure intentions to do right by a grieving son. Chess Boldrin, Chivalry’s most eligible bachelor is situated comfortably with everything he needs. When Chess and Mattie meet, the temperatures run high and short. Chess avoids her attempts to gain ...

A genteel Border South town not far from the nation’s capital is shaken by a series of vicious slayings at historic sites. These include a Civil War cemetery for escaped slaves; a burial mound of Confederate soldiers; a church associated with George Washington; and a museum on the Antebellum Era. At the same time, violent break-ins take place at venerable banks and townhomes connected with the lives of Washington, Robert E. Lee, and civil rights figures.

Readers’ Favorite 5-Star Award A captivating historical novel with spell-binding mysteries, inspired by actual people, places and events. B.R.A.G. Medallion Honoree A compelling novel with several sub-stories in different settings and time periods that bring life to each one. Helen Ainsley is a best-selling mystery writer struggling with cancer. She returns to her childhood home in rural Brattleboro Vermont for the serenity she hopes will rekindle her imagination. Ainsley Hill Farm was originally an Inn dating back to the American Revolution. With a new-found friend, an old golden ...

In this chapter from Lynn Thorndike's The History of Medieval Europe, gradually there grew up in the medieval West a native merchant class who devoted most of their time to buying and selling. They found it advisable to band together for mutual support and protection; in the towns a merchant guild arose as a sort of medieval chamber of commerce. A guild consisted of apprentices, journeymen, and master-workmen.

Two ex-lovers. One cozy lodge. And a snowstorm they’ll never forget. Emberleigh: Covering a Christmas hockey game in Pine Ridge was supposed to be just another holiday assignment. But when a blizzard trapped me in a cozy lodge with the one man I never wanted to see again—Logan "Bear" McKenzie, coach of the Denver Warlords team—I knew this was more than just a storm. Our past is as frosty as the snow piling up outside, but there’s a fire between us that refuses to die. As the holiday lights twinkle and the world outside freezes, can I keep myself from falling once again for the man ...

John Henry Cole is an operative of Ike Kelly's Detective Agency, based out of Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory. Returning to Cheyenne from what had been a deadly assignment in Deadwood, Dakota Territory, Cole has decided that he has no alternative but to resign from the agency and pursue a different line of work. However, in Cheyenne, Cole learns that Ike Kelly has been murdered and his body burned in a fire that destroyed both the agency office and the shop next door.

Rebecca McClung, who sat in her house watching everyone in town go by, was once a beauty. But the scene that greeted the coroner early one spring morning in 1901 was far from beautiful. She lay across her bed, blood dripping to the floor, her head bashed in with a wooden club. Her husband, a wealthy old miser, stood dazed nearby, his coat stained with blood. Residents in the small Ohio town said he kept all his money in a barrel in their house and made his wife sit on it whenever he went out. They were a peculiar couple. But was he a murderer? Isabel Miller, the undertaker’s daughter, ...

Based on the personalities who created America’s Early Colonial Period, Footprints in History, combines imagination and historic events to tell of the author’s sixth great-grandfather, blacksmith and indentured servant, James Fitchett. James and his neighbors toil in the new land for the twenty-four Scottish investors, known as proprietors. These men control East New Jersey hoping to amass fortunes from the sweat and tears of their tenants, indentured servants, and slaves. Not all settlers share the same hopes and beliefs. Footprints in History reveals the winners and the losers

Inspired by a true story. In 1825, in a remote Irish valley lying between the mountains and Flesk River of Killarney, three women are brought together by strange and troubling events. Nora Leahy, a widow, has lost her daughter and her husband in the same year and is now burdened with the care of her grandson, Michael. The boy cannot walk or speak, and Nora has kept him hidden from neighbours, who might see in his deformity evidence of supernatural interference.

CAPE TOWN’S POPULAR high-end night spots attract an array of clientele, from young partygoers to politicians, models to moguls. In parallel with this is a sleazy underworld where control of the lucrative nightclub-security scene is the ultimate prize, for which some are prepared to pay using extortion and murder as the main currencies. South Africa’s private-security sector is massive, an informal police force increasingly relied on as confidence in traditional policing wanes. But it’s an industry tainted by ties to underworld figures and events.

Does any other single word in any language invoke so much passion, and angst, enthusiasm, and sadness, as do those 10 letters? But what is Gettysburg, exactly? I am almost embarrassed to say I discovered the answer to that question - or at least approached an answer - only late in life. Of course, Gettysburg is a small charming city nestled in south-central Pennsylvania, but in so many ways it beggars description. For about half the year its streets are mainly empty, its businesses quiet, the weather cold and blustery.

From one of the bestselling western novelists of all time, comes another classic story. Templeton Lambeth had so desperately wanted a son - an heir to ride by his side through the vast, wild ranges just west of the Pecos River. But to his disappointment, his wife bore a girl. His hopes crushed and in denial, he decides to raise his daughter as if she were a boy. In honor of Lambeth's more successful brother, they named her: Terrill.

A historical fiction novel set in the Five Towns of England during the late 19th century, Three Penny Sunday offers an engaging journey into the life of an intriguing character, Edward Henry Walker, born in 1867. Tracing his trajectory from a modest upbringing in Bursley to prominence, the novel weaves a rich tableau of the era's local pottery industry often referred to as "potbanks", and the tight-knit, gossip-ridden community that shapes the town's social and political landscape. Henry's Course Initially an ordinary boy, Henry secures a surprise scholarship at twelve, albeit through ...

When Juniper returns home for Christmas, will the magic of the season turn what starts as a fling into something more? Coming home for Christmas wasn’t part of my plan, especially not after my ex, Troy, dumped me like a hot potato for another woman. But my mom’s guilt trips are as relentless as ever, and with no flights available, I find myself on a twelve-hour drive back to the small town I left behind. Just as I’m about to reach town, my car gives up the ghost, leaving me stranded with a snowstorm approaching and no cell service. That’s when he shows up. Mason Knight. The high ...