Western Wars

The Bohemians begins in 1860s San Francisco. The Gold Rush has ended; the Civil War threatens to tear apart the country. The bards of the moment are the Bohemians: a young Mark Twain, fleeing the draft and seeking adventure; literary golden boy Bret Harte; struggling gay poet Charles Warren Stoddard; and beautiful, haunted Ina Coolbrith, poet and protectorate of the group.

When the Great War ended in 1918, the West was broken. Religious faith, patriotism, and the belief in human progress had all been called into question by the mass carnage experienced by both sides. Shell-shocked and traumatized, the West faced a world it no longer recognized: The old order had collapsed, replaced by an age of machines. The world hurtled forward on gears and crankshafts, and terrifying new ideologies arose from the wreckage of past belief.

Waking in the dirt to the smell of smoke, widower Ben Palmer finds his homestead razed, and his daughter gone. Ben is raising his daughter Iris as best he could, scratching a living out of the rocky New Mexico mountain soil. Life is hard – but it just gets a lot harder. Under the lead of the notorious Stitch Jacobs, six desperate men have just fouled relations between the Apache nation and a wealthy land baron. Caught in the crosshairs of their escape, Ben’s daughter is taken hostage as a peace offering to the tyrant who bankrolls the gang. Ben is desperate. Getting his daughter back ...

This meticulously researched book reveals how the Revolution’s attack on tradition—from the Church to family structures—created a new order still felt today. Whether you're a history enthusiast or curious about the forces that shaped Western modernity, this book uncovers the Revolution's war on established authority and its far-reaching effects.

It’s 1914. The Great War grips the world - and from the Western Front a strange story emerges...a story of St. George and a brigade of angels descending from heaven to fight beside the beleaguered British troops. But can there be any truth to it?

“…I don’t have much patience and my hands are sweaty. I’d hate to shoot you by accident, that would upset me for a day or two, but I could live with it. You couldn’t”“Now there’s no need….”“I won’t say it again mister.” I cocked the hammer on the second barrel.Just when you think the adventure is over, you find it just began. Luke, Joe Ray, and Jack aren’t finished righting wrongs. The Civil War was tearing America apart and renegade Confederate soldiers were wreaking havoc in Texas. The outlaw soldiers made the mistake of thinking Luke was still a boy. He ...

Sara Potecha was one of the first women to graduate from West Point. The lessons she learned at the Academy and in the Army - about life and leadership, courage and character, resolve and resilience - have served her well in both military and civilian roles. Those skills have inspired this powerful book for leaders who aim to, like Sara, come out ahead even in the face of adversity and care for their own teams thoughtfully and with heart.

Ulysses S. Grant, 18th President of the United States and commander of the Union forces in the Civil War, tells the story of his life in his own words. In this opening volume, Grant covers his early years, including his time at the U.S. military academy at West Point and his service during the Mexican War under Zachary Taylor. Grant wrote his memoirs in order to rescue his family from debt and they were published as he lay dying of throat cancer. Today, they are an American classic.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, so when Hannah Granger's little sister takes off for Oregon with a group of mail-order brides to meet her new husband, Hannah has no choice but to follow. She expects her sister to find trouble, and she does. But what Hannah doesn't expect is to fall for the hired gun traveling with the wagon train as they make their way along the treacherous Oregon Trail. The bounty hunter is tall, dark and dangerous, everything she's avoided her entire life. But when she begins to suspect criminals are riding just four wagons back, she'll do just about anything...

Amid the aftermath of the Civil War, Georgie O'Rourke, the last surviving member of her family, decides her only choice is to leave her beloved state of Tennessee by answering a mail-order bride advertisement. With only a few items of rag, like clothing, she travels the Southwest Trail by covered wagon to meet up with her groom in Texas. Captain Parker Eastman, formally of the Confederate Army, travels from his cattle ranch to the Southwest Trail to intercept a woman his mother hired as a companion. He soon finds out that Georgie traveled to Texas to become his wife.

Jackson Chandler, a Union Army veteran, values Afton town’s calm and quiet as do most of the townsfolk. And Afton, in Kansas, wants no part of being a cattle town. Cattle, plentiful in Texas, have to be shipped back east to a hungry public, who couldn’t get enough beef. The closest railroad hubs are in Kansas. Texas drovers move massive herds through Indian Territory and into Kansas. Corrupt banker Morton Ludwig wants his share of the lucrative cattle trade and will do anything to make Afton a wide open yet violent cattle town. He has help from a vicious outlaw he employs, named Decker ...

The number of soldiers wounded in World War I is, in itself, devastating: over 21 million military wounded, and nearly 10 million killed. On the battlefield, the injuries were shocking, unlike anything those in the medical field had ever witnessed. The bullets hit fast and hard, went deep, and took bits of dirty uniform and airborne soil particles in with them. Soldier after soldier came in with the most dreaded kinds of casualty: awful, deep, ragged wounds to their heads, faces, and abdomens.

Art looting is commonly recognized as a central feature of Nazi expropriation. After the war, the famed Monuments Men (and women) recovered several hundred thousand pieces from the Germans' makeshift repositories. Well-publicized restitution cases, such as that of Gustav Klimt's luminous painting featured in the film Woman in Gold, illustrate the legacy of Nazi looting in the art world today. But what happened to looted art that was never returned to its rightful owners?

The blanket of snow covers the state of Colorado as Hudson Owens stands in front of his mother’s fresh grave. It is supposed to be a simple affair after which Hudson would travel back to his home town and carry on with his life. As Hudson rides through a snow storm and into the town of Ashcroft, he notices a commotion at the sheriff’s office. It turns out that a stagecoach has just been robbed by a gang led by Johnny Daggers, a notorious outlaw of the state. One of the victims involved is a woman called Dolly Miller who had cared for Hudson’s mother before her recent death. Knowing ...

“Don’t touch him there! He’s bleeding.” “I know that he’s bleeding! Both of my hands are covered in blood.” “Well, be careful.” “I am being careful, Rose. I don’t want to make it any worse!” “I think he’s waking up.” Ted was convinced that he was dreaming. And when he opened his eyes, he was sure that there were two angels looking down at him. “Hello, mister,” Rose said. “How are you feeling?” “Don’t ask him that, Rose,” the other woman replied. “You can clearly see that he’s been shot.” “I just wanted to make sure, okay, Lilly?” Ted was...

***Award-winner BookFest Spring 2024 - First place in Fiction > Literary - Love Story & Romance, Fiction > Romance - Small Town*** Whispering Lessons – Where adventure meets romance in the untamed West! In the aftermath of the Civil War, chaos reigns, and outlaws thrive. But a gang of gutsy educators led by Kandice isn’t here to play by the rules. They're teaching more than lessons—they're rewriting the frontier's wild story! When Kandice crosses paths with the town’s rugged sheriff, sparks fly, but their connection is anything but simple. Can love blossom in a land where survival ...

Life in the rugged Appalachian Mountains of the 1860s was brutal but life in those treacherous hills had never been easy. A tough life breeds hardy people and the mountain people were as unforgiving and fierce as the mountains themselves. The old ways ran strong in their blood and hatred ran bone deep. Feuds were a part of life. The Robertson clan was a small but proud family. When a cherished member was needlessly shot down the grief-stricken Robertsons went to war against the family of her killers. The feud dragged on for years but their enemies were far too numerous. Fourteen year old ...

The year is 1928. On the outskirts of a large German city, three young men are earning a thin and precarious living. Fully armed young storm troopers swagger in the streets. Restlessness, poverty, and violence are everywhere. For these three, friendship is the only refuge from the chaos around them. Then the youngest of them falls in love and brings into the group a young woman who will become a comrade as well, as they are all tested in ways they can have never imagined.

It’s 1868 and many people are relying on the skills of scout Drake Sagewater. Drake is helping settlers on their way to California. The Andrews family, riding in a canvas wagon, has been attacked by a shrewd renegade from the Apache Nation, named Jace. With a rag-tagged band of fellow renegades, Jace is making life miserable, and sometimes deadly, for settlers. That is the case with the migrating Andrews family, who loses their patriarch, Jed Andrews, in a raid. While seeking justice, Jed’s daughter, Lydia, takes a shine to the handsome young Drake Sagewater. Drake’s challenge is ...

Austin Burke, age 16, does not have an easy life, yet he chooses not to let that bring him down. He has big ambitions. Someday, he is going to become a lawman. Sheriff Dalton keeps treating him like a kid, but Austin doesn’t care. He wants to prove everybody wrong. One day, an outlaw by the name of Lyra Holden rides into town looking for the sheriff. She has some unfinished business – to get back at the sheriff for locking up a man she has been hunting down for a long time. Nobody has the right to touch her prey. It is her job. After realizing Sheriff Dalton is out of town, Lyra goes ...