Book picks similar to
The Shopkeeper by James D. Best


western
historical-fiction
fiction
westerns

Archer


Jacky Gray - 2010
    Shoot an apple off his friend’s head or lose his food, horse and clothes? Some decisions require little thought.Archer is the sort of boy things happen to. Orphaned as a baby, his gifts make him different to other kids. He doesn't understand why he's so much stronger and faster than other boys; why a sword feels so right in his hand; or how every arrow he looses at a target will hit the centre, even if his eyes are closed.At the Beltane ritual, he must fight his friends to see who is most worthy. But his real battle is with an enemy whose callous disrespect for the natural order brings dangerous consequences.This swashbuckling romantic fantasy will appeal to fans of action-adventure, jousting and magical realism.

Nightblade


Ryan Kirk - 2015
    Found by a wandering warrior, he learns he may have more strength than he ever imagined possible. A quiet child, Moriko is forced into a monastic system she despises. Torn from her family and the forest she grew up in, she must fight to learn the skills she’ll need to survive her tutelage under the realm’s most dangerous assassin. Young, beautiful, and broke, Takako is sold to pay for her father’s debts. Thrust into a world she doesn’t understand and battles she didn’t ask for, she must decide where her loyalties lie. When their lives crash together in a Kingdom on the brink of war, the decisions they make will change both their lives and their Kingdom forever. If they can stay alive.

Nora & Kettle


Lauren Nicolle Taylor - 2016
    As an orphaned Japanese American struggling to make a life in the aftermath of an event in history not often referred to — the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II and the removal of children from orphanages for having "one drop of Japanese blood in them" — things are finally looking up. He has his hideout in an abandoned subway tunnel, a job, and his gang of Lost Boys.Desperate to run away, the world outside her oppressive brownstone calls to naive, eighteen-year-old Nora — the privileged daughter of a controlling and violent civil rights lawyer who is building a compensation case for the interned Japanese Americans. But she is trapped, enduring abuse to protect her younger sister Frankie and wishing on the stars every night for things to change.For months, they've lived side by side, their paths crossing yet never meeting. But when Nora is nearly killed and her sister taken away, their worlds collide as Kettle, grief stricken at the loss of a friend, angrily pulls Nora from her window.In her honeyed eyes, Kettle sees sadness and suffering. In his, Nora sees the chance to take to the window and fly away.Set in 1953, Nora & Kettle explores the collision of two teenagers facing extraordinary hardship. Their meeting is inevitable, devastating, and ultimately healing. Their stories a collection of events, are each on their own harmless. But together, one after the other, they change the world.

Breaking Twig


Deborah Epperson - 2011
    Not even Twig’s vivid imagination, keen wit, and dark sense of humor is enough to help her survive the escalating assaults of Helen and a new stepbrother, but help comes from an unexpected source—Frank, her stepfather. Sometimes, having one person who loves and believes in you is all a girl needs to keep hope alive. Often raw and irreverent and sprinkled with all the Southern flavoring found in a good bowl of chicken and dumplings, BREAKING TWIG, is about finding love where we least expect it, destroying lives with easy lies, and realizing each of us determine our own truth. (Taken from author's website.)

Now or Never


A.J. Bennett - 2013
    Her attraction to the sexy man in uniform quickly turns into an unhealthy relationship. They both try to resist the pull, but neither can stay away. When tragedy strikes, Grayson realizes it's now or never—walk away or make it work.

Evensong


Krista Walsh - 2014
    He is within his own novel—summoned into the fictional world of Feldall’s Keep by a spell he didn't write. One the House enchantress hasn't figured out how to reverse.When the villain he's been struggling to write reveals himself, unleashing waves of terror and chaos, Jeff must use more than his imagination to save the characters he created—and the woman he loves.Trapped within a world of his own creation, he must step outside the bounds of his narrative to help his characters defeat an evil no one anticipated, even if he must sacrifice his greatest gift. In the end, he has to ask: are novels really fiction, or windows into other worlds?The Meratis Trilogy centres around author Jeff Powell, who wakes up in his sword-and-sorcery fantasy world. Initially an arrogant and close-minded character, Jeff has his eyes opened to a world of dragons, magic, and assassins. Faced with an evil he could never have imagined, Jeff is pushed to his limits and forced to rise to the most unusual challenges.

Forged in Fire


Trish McCallan - 2011
    When events in her dream start coming true, she heads to the flight’s departure gate. To her shock, she recognizes the man she’d watched die the night before. Lieutenant Commander Zane Winters comes from a bloodline of elite warriors with psychic abilities. When Zane and two of his platoon buddies arrive at Sea-Tac Airport, he has a vision of his teammates’ corpses. Then she arrives—a leggy blonde who sets off a different kind of alarm. As Beth teams up with Zane, they discover the hijacking is the first step in a secret cartel’s deadly global agenda and that key personnel within the FBI are compromised. To survive the forces mobilizing against them, Beth will need to open herself to a psychic connection with the sexy SEAL who claims to be her soul mate.

Fatal Exchange


Russell Blake - 2011
    financial system.From the sweltering streets of Seoul to the sex-and-drug-driven underbelly of Greenwich Village, attempts at silencing a leak in an international counterfeiting operation leave a trail of butchery that leads inevitably to Wall Street, pitting a counter-culture heroine against a ruthless state-sponsored assassination team that will stop at nothing to achieve its lethal ends.As the body count climbs, Tess is assisted by Detective Ron Stanford, a NYPD homicide specialist tracking a brutal serial killer whose ritualistic cycle of murder and mutilation targeting bike messengers is escalating to fever pitch.Tess's battle to survive propels her into a deadly underworld where she must become judge and executioner, challenging her core beliefs about morality, justice and love.

The Marquess of Cakes


Heather Hiestand - 2013
    Yet she is unaware that with each morsel—and flash of ankle—she is seducing the handsome marquess frequenting her father’s tea shop. Unmarried at twenty-six, Alys’s first love is the family business. But thoughts of the gentleman’s touch are driving her to distraction…With his weakness for sugar, the Marquess of Hatbrook can imagine no more desirable woman than one scented with cake and spice. Mistaking Alys for a mere waitress, he has no doubt she would make a most delicious mistress. And when he finds himself in need of an heir, he plans to make her his convenient bride. Yet as they satisfy their craving for one another, business and pleasure suddenly collide. Will Hatbrook’s passion for sweets—and for Alys—be his heart’s undoing?85,000 words

Fury


Michelle Pace - 2012
    Finally success is within her grasp. A journalist for the music magazine, The Sound Wave, the assignment of a lifetime just landed in her lap. An all access pass to tour with the British rock band, Fury. Their latest album went triple platinum and they've never granted interviews.Once her assignment begins, Fury's tour explodes in a Molotov cocktail of sex, scandal, and violence that threatens to ruin Fury's quest for worldwide success. Can Cheyenne navigate her treacherous path unscathed, or will the demons of her past poison her blossoming career?

Wrecked


Elle Casey - 2012
    When forced to work together, they discover they have more in common than they ever imagined ...

The Dead and the Missing


A.D. Davies - 2015
     When his mentor’s niece rips off a local organised crime syndicate and disappears, Adam Park – a former private investigator and security consultant – has little choice but to return home to help track her down. As he commences his investigation, it becomes clear the troubled young woman was acting under the influence of a domineering boyfriend and, using cutting edge technology, Adam tracks the pair to Paris. Here, he learns not only have they involved themselves in a criminal venture that may now cost them their lives, but elements back home are also seeking revenge upon them. Pursuing them from the UK to Paris, then out into the wider world, Adam will confront an international network of criminals for whom human life is nothing but another business commodity. If he is to survive, return the girl safely, and protect the people he cares for most, he must delve into the darkest recesses of his soul, and blur his previously-solid concepts of right and wrong.

The Billionaire's Secret


Jeannette Winters - 2015
    His friends decide to shake him up by entering him as a prize at a charity event.Accountant Lizette Burke is dressed to the nines and covering for her boss at a charity event. She’s hoping to land a donor for the struggling non-profit agency that employs her.She never expected to win a date with a billionaire.He never thought one night could turn his life upside down.One lie stands between them and their happily ever after. Too bad it’s a big one!Betting on You Series:Book One: The Billionaire’s Secret (Free!)Book Two: The Billionaire’s Masquerade (Coming April 2015!)Book Three: The Billionaire’s Longshot (Coming May 2015!)Book Four: The Billionaire’s Jackpot (Coming July 2015!)

In the Shadow of Lakecrest


Elizabeth Blackwell - 2017
    Kate Moore is looking for a way out of the poverty and violence of her childhood. When a chance encounter on a transatlantic ocean liner brings her face-to-face with the handsome heir to a Chicago fortune, she thinks she may have found her escape—as long as she can keep her past concealed.After exchanging wedding vows, Kate quickly discovers that something isn’t quite right with her husband—or her new family. As Mrs. Matthew Lemont, she must contend with her husband’s disturbing past, his domineering mother, and his overly close sister. Isolated at Lakecrest, the sprawling, secluded Lemont estate, she searches desperately for clues to Matthew’s terrors, which she suspects stem from the mysterious disappearance of his aunt years before. As Kate stumbles deeper into a maze of family secrets, she begins to question everyone’s sanity—especially her own. But just how far will she go to break free of this family’s twisted past?

The Lawman


Lily Graison - 2011
    That is until a single slap to a man’s face starts a barroom brawl that lands her in the last place she expected to be.Town Marshal Morgan Avery wants nothing more than to wash away the trail-dust and sleep for a week, preferably with a soft, willing woman by his side. Instead, he gets Abigail Thornton – all one hundred pounds of her thrust at him seconds before a fist connects with his face. Breaking up the fight takes more effort than he wants to admit and when the last man falls he finds Abigail still standing and not looking the least bit contrite.Throwing her into the town jail for the night would salve his wounded pride and then he will let her go. Or that was the plan. When morning comes he finds himself oddly reluctant to do so. Miss Thornton is hiding something and he aims to find out what, even if he has to bed her to do so. But will one night in her bed be enough?