Town Histories

Clarinda, Iowa, population 5,000, sits two hours from anything. There, between the cornfields and hog yards, is a ball field with a bronze bust of a man named Merl Eberly, a baseball whisperer who specialized in second chances and lost causes. The statue was a gift from one of Merl's original long-shot projects, a skinny kid from the ghetto in Los Angeles who would one day become a beloved Hall of Fame shortstop: Ozzie Smith.

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

From one of the most beloved Western authors comes an epic historical tale of adventure and romance in the great wilderness. Against the epic backdrop of the building of the Union Pacific Railroad across plains and deserts and through the mountains to meet up with the Southern Pacific in Utah comes a sprawling, historical tale. Warren Neale is a brilliant civil engineer who is constantly confronted with construction problems. He is sided by Larry Red King, a Texas gunfighter and friend.

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

From the best-selling author of Riders of the Purple Sage, comes another classic Western tale. In the spirit and glory of a classic Western, and published exactly as the author originally intended, Knights of the Range, is one of Zane Grey's swiftest and most exciting novels.

Clint Belmet's parents were killed in a Comanche raid when he was young, but that hasn't stopped him from taking a job leading freight caravans on the old Santa Fe Trail, from Saint Louis, Missouri, to Santa Fe, New Mexico - a route that goes right through Comanche territory. Here is the raw, primitive West of the early pioneers, great caravans of freighters rumbling across the deadly prairies, risking attack by Comanche.

When a drought reveals a sunken town beneath Seabreeze’s lake, Charlotte Greenfield and retired detective Luke Harrison uncover long-buried secrets—secrets someone is willing to kill to keep hidden. As they unravel a web of corruption, greed, and tragedy, they must race to expose the truth before it’s lost beneath the surface forever.

The mother of Matthew Shepard shares her story about her son's death and the choice she made to become an international gay rights activist.

In The Company Town, Hardy Green, who has covered American business for over a decade, offers a compelling analysis of the emergence of these communities and their role in shaping the American economy, beginning in the country's earliest years....

The Lindsay family has come west hoping to help the father, John, recover from an illness. When they arrive, they are induced to purchase Spanish Peaks Ranch, an abandoned United States military post surrounded by mountains. It seems like a perfect place to settle into their new life as ranchers. As they soon find out, though, this deserted fort is equally suited for both protection and imprisonment.

In April 1945, Linz was one of Nazi Germany's most vital assets. It was a crucial transportation hub and communications center, with railyards brimming with war materiel destined for the front lines. Linz was also the town Hitler claimed as home and had long intended to remake as the cultural capital of Europe, filling its planned Fuehrermuseum with world-famous art stolen from his conquered territories.

Jade Colton and Jasen Prospero are still adapting to their new wealth, thanks to their discovery of Choctaw Indian Chief Greenwood Leflore’s buried gold. Meanwhile, their friend and FBI Special Agent Elizabeth Keys has finally convinced private investigator Marcus Bianco that it’s time to consummate their flirtatious relationship. Things are looking good, so naturally, the group falls headfirst into another mystery. On a midnight journey down the Natchez Trace, Jade and Jasen have a ghostly encounter at Windsor Ruins, the crumbling remains of a once great antebellum plantation. Soon ...

The story of a year-long confrontation in 1972 between the Vancouver police and the Clark Park gang, a band of unruly characters who ruled the city's east side. Corrupt cops, hapless criminals, and murder figure in this story that questions which gang was tougher: the petty criminals or the police themselves.

A wild and gripping novel about one woman's quest to reintroduce wolves to the Scottish Highlands at any cost. Inti Flynn arrives in the Scottish Highlands with fourteen grey wolves, a traumatised sister and fierce tenacity. As a biologist, she knows the animals are the best hope for rewilding the ruined landscape, and she cares little for local opposition. As a sister, she hopes the remote project will offer her twin, Aggie, a chance to heal after the horrific events that drove them both out of Alaska.

In the 1960s, racial prejudice and hatred resulted in a throw-away child. Can that child, now a grown man, forgive the unforgiveable? When biracial adoptee Joseph Jessup seeks Enid Gilchrist-Mulhaney’s help in searching for his birthparents, the two of them uncover secrets from the past that threaten members of four families in the present.

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.

Genealogist Enid Gilchrist thought she was going to help patron Maude Everly keep a promise and uncover a family secret. Now as she and Maude search through the contents of a generations-old dower chest, they discover clues to more family secrets, troubling secrets from the Civil War years that someone in their present-day rural West Tennessee community is desperate to keep buried. Can they discover all of the family secrets in time to save their lives? In time for ninety-year-old Maude to keep her promise?

Winsor Glanvil pays court to Louise Carney, heiress to a fortune, and she agrees to marry him. The marriage is opposed by big Jack Rutledge, a jealous rival and formidable foe, so Glanvil and Louise plan to be married in a sequestered valley by a local clergyman. Rutledge and his supporters, learning of the plan, arrive in the valley ahead of the two and seize Glanvil. Glanvil is beaten mercilessly and Rutledge disfigures him, destroying one side of his face with the cutting edge of a spur. Rutledge then rejoins his gang in the clergyman’s house.

“A well-plotted and highly-emotional historical novel. A FINALIST and highly recommended.” - A Wishing Shelf Book Awards Finalist "It was difficult to tell what was lightning, air fire or ground fire. It seemed we were trying to navigate a sky filled with fireworks within the middle of a storm. The plane shuddered, losing altitude in a dive that was too steep and too fast. Concerned that the stalling engine's fire and tail rip may ignite the load of ammunition within, I instinctively banked, aiming offshore to the water below." Maddy survived and now she wants to know why. Racked with ...

When a black man was accused of attacking a white woman in a rural Florida town, a tinderbox of racial hatred was ignited. On New Year's Day 1923, Rosewood, a town of hard-working, middle-class African Americans, was burned to the ground by an angry mob of whites. After hiding in frigid nearby swamps for days, the few survivors never returned.