Book picks similar to
Coyote: The Outlander by Chantal Noordeloos


steampunk
fantasy
summer-reading-list
weird-western

Treasure, Darkly


Jordan Elizabeth - 2015
     A great invention for creating perfect soldiers, yes, but Clark wants to live as a miner, not a slave to the army—or the deceased. On the run, Clark turns to his estranged, mining tycoon father for help. The Treasures welcome Clark with open arms, so he jumps at the chance to help them protect their ranch against Senator Horan, a man who hates anyone more powerful than he. Sixteen-year-old Amethyst Treasure loathes the idea of spending the summer away from her bustling city life to rot on her father’s ranch, but when a handsome young man shows up claiming to be her secret half-brother, her curiosity is piqued. He’s clever, street smart, and has no qualms jumping into the brawl between the Treasures and Horans. Caught in the middle, Horan kidnaps Amethyst, and all she gets is this lousy bullet through her heart. When Clark brings her back to life, however, the real action starts, and Amethyst joins him in his fight against the Horan clan—whatever the cost. Defeating the Horans may seem easy at first, but going up against men with the same fighting vengeance as Clark, and a Senator with power he’s obtained by brainwashing the masses? Well, Amethyst’s boring summer at home has turned into an adventure on the run, chock full of intrigue, danger, love, and a mysterious boy named Clark.

Ghost


Elle Andrews Patt - 2020
    Yet. No one believes six-year-old Billie Mae knows how she died. Archivist Andrea Kelley's best friend, police detective William Taka, doesn't believe Andrea is actually conversing with a ghost. And Andrea can’t believe Taka has been doubting her sanity, that she’s scared for the safety of a little girl’s ghost, and that she’s really discovered the trail of a serial killer. Until... She’s relying on strangers to help her investigate, being followed by both the local crime boss and the state cops, fielding phone calls from the dead, and skulking around in the dark, unsure of anyone who crosses her path. Did Billie Mae’s mom kill her? Has Andrea’s bestie run away when she needs him most? How many more kids and cops will die before everyone believes it’s murder?

Of Honey and Wildfires


Sarah Chorn - 2020
    Now, everything revolves around that magical oil. What began as a simple scouting expedition becomes a life-changing ordeal for Arlen Esco. The son of a powerful mogul, Arlen is kidnapped and forced to confront uncomfortable truths his father has kept hidden. In his hands lies a decision that will determine the fate of everyone he loves—and impact the lives of every person in Shine Territory. The daughter of an infamous saboteur and outlaw, Cassandra has her own dangerous secrets to protect. When the lives of those she loves are threatened, she realizes that she is uniquely placed to change the balance of power in Shine Territory once and for all. Secrets breed more secrets. Somehow, Arlen and Cassandra must find their own truths in the middle of a garden of lies.

Clementine


Cherie Priest - 2010
    Exiled, widowed, and on the brink of poverty…she reluctantly goes to work for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in Chicago.Adding insult to injury, her first big assignment is commissioned by the Union Army. In short, a federally sponsored transport dirigible is being violently pursued across the Rockies and Uncle Sam isn’t pleased. The Clementine is carrying a top secret load of military essentials—essentials which must be delivered to Louisville, Kentucky, without delay.Intelligence suggests that the unrelenting pursuer is a runaway slave who’s been wanted by authorities on both sides of the Mason-Dixon for fifteen years. In that time, Captain Croggon Beauregard Hainey has felonied his way back and forth across the continent, leaving a trail of broken banks, stolen war machines, and illegally distributed weaponry from sea to shining sea.And now it’s Maria’s job to go get him.He’s dangerous quarry and she’s a dangerous woman, but when forces conspire against them both, they take a chance and form an alliance. She joins his crew, and he uses her connections. She follows his orders. He takes her advice.And somebody, somewhere, is going to rue the day he crossed either one of them.

The Devil's Revolver


V.S. McGrath - 2017
    The first book in an epic, magic-clad series featuring the Wild West reimagined as a crosscultural stereoscope of interdimensional magic and hardship, The Devil’s Revolver opens with a shooting competition and takes off across the landscape after a brutal double murder and kidnapping — to which revenge is the only answer. Hettie Alabama, only seventeen years old, leads her crew of underdogs with her father’s cursed revolver, magicked to take a year off her life each time she fires it. It’s no way for a ranch girl to grow up, but grow up she does, her scars and determination to rescue her vulnerable younger sister deepening with every year of life she loses. A sweeping and high-stakes saga that gilds familiar Western adventure with powerful magic and panoramic fantasy, The Devil’s Revolver is the last word and the blackest hat in the Weird West.

High Planes Drifter


Edward M. Erdelac - 2009
     In this acclaimed first volume, four sequential novellas and one bonus short story chronicle the weird adventures of THE MERKABAH RIDER. In THE BLOOD LIBEL, The Rider fights to save the last survivors of a frontier Jewish settlement not only from a maddened lynch mob, but from a cult of Molech worshippers hiding in their midst. In THE DUST DEVILS, a border town is held hostage by a band of outlaws in league with a powerful Vodoun sorcerer. In HELL'S HIRED GUN, The Rider faces an ex-Confederate sharpshooter who has pledged his allegiance to Hell itself. In THE NIGHTJAR WOMEN, The Rider drifts into a town where children cannot be born. Here an antediluvian being holds the secret to his fugitive master's insidious plan; a plot that threatens all of Creation. Finally, never before collected, THE SHOMER EXPRESS. On a midnight train crossing the desert, a corpse turns up desecrated. Someone stalking the cars has assumed its shape, and only The Rider can stop it.

The Hook


Meljean Brook - 2010
    The challenge was to write about a famous urban legend in our characters’ voices, and my urban legend was The Hook.This story features Detective Inspector Mina Wentworth and Constable Newberry from The Iron Duke.

Dorn of the Mountains


Zane Grey - 2008
    He wasn't looking for trouble that day in the deep mountain forest, but trouble found him. Dorn overheard an ambitious rancher plotting with an outlaw to kidnap the daughters of the owner of a neighboring spread. If he acted quickly, Dorn hoped he could save the girls by spiriting them away before the outlaw's gang took them off the stage on the way to town. But now the gang's begun a ruthless search of the forest, determined to find their prey...and kill anyone who tries to stop them!When this powerful tale of adventure, danger, romance, and hope was first published—under the title Man of the Forest—it was dramatically different from what Zane Grey had originally written. Long passages had been removed, other passages written by someone else were inserted, and the hero's name had been changed to Dale. Now, restored from Grey's original manuscript, this wonderful novel can finally be enjoyed the way its author actually wrote it.

Bullet Catcher


Joaquin Lowe - 2016
    She and her brother, Nikko, dreamed of escaping to become bullet catchers, a legendary band of outlaws who can deflect bullets with their hands. But they were wiped out years ago, Nikko with them. And leaving is impossible when walking into the desert means certain death.When she sees a stranger catch a man's bullet and turn it back on him, Imma knows it can only mean one thing: the bullet catchers live on, and this is her way out. Determined to follow him, Imma starts a journey that will take her to her physical extremes and force her to question just what family means and who she really is: bullet catcher or gunslinger; hero or monster.

Lady Mechanika: La Dama de la Muerte


Joe Benítez - 2017
    But the festivities turn truly deadly after the arrival of the Jinetes del Infierno, the mythical Hell Riders. Collects the complete Lady Mechanika Day of the Dead special, La Dama de la Muerte.

Bartleby and James


Michael Coorlim - 2012
    James Wainwright is a brilliant but socially stunted working class engineer with a flair for invention and a propensity towards violence. Together they solve the mysteries that Scotland Yard cannot. This novel is the first in the Galvanic Century series of steampunk mysteries.

Knight School


Andrew Mayne - 2013
    To win, they have to battle for control of the forest and obey a code of conduct to keep their war from spilling into the outside world.The woods between the schools are filled with dangers and dark secrets. Central among them is Venn Maddox, the youngest student to ever lead a clan in the game. Brilliant and manipulative, some think he’s a sociopath who may have killed to protect his own secrets.New kid, Marv Whitlock, already dealing with his own troubles, finds himself in the middle of the decade old conflict and has to use his wits to avoid being one more pawn.Bestselling author Andrew Mayne, brings you Knight School, an adventurous cross of Friday Night Lights and Game of Thrones.

Apocalypse: Diary of a Survivor


Matt J. Pike - 2014
     Finding out early was a gift, surviving impact night was a miracle, living to tell the tale, well, that was the price I will pay, forever. There’s no going back now.” Award winning author*, Matt Pike, takes you on a journey to the end of the world and beyond, as told through the eyes of an Australian teenager, who records his experiences day by day in a survival diary. From the social chaos in suburban Adelaide in the lead-up, a night of total global catastrophe and the aftershocks as community and humanity crumble around him – the world changes forever. What’s left is a place where the conditions can kill you just as easily as the other survivors. Everything our teenager relied upon for survival in the pre-disaster world falls apart – utilities, community, environment – the only things that can keep him alive are his resources and resourcefulness. *2013 Global Ebook Awards: Gold Medal – Teen Literature Fiction for Kings of the World

Wolves of the Northern Rift


Jon Messenger - 2015
    It spread from the Rift, a great chasm hundreds of miles long that nearly split the southern continent in two. The Rift was a portal, a gateway between their world of science and the mythological world of magic.On the northern continent of Ocker, King Godwin declared that no magical monstrosity would be allowed within their borders. The Royal Inquisitors were formed to investigate reports of mystical occurrences and, should they be found, to destroy them.Inquisitor Simon Whitlock knows his responsibilities all too well. Along with the apothecary, Luthor Strong, they’ve spent two years inquiring into such reports of magical abominations, though they’ve discovered far more charlatans than true magical creatures. When assigned to investigate Haversham and its reports of werewolves, Simon remains unconvinced that the rumors are true. What he discovers in the frozen little hamlet is that the werewolves are far more real than he believed; yet they’re hardly the most dangerous monster in the city.

Ticker


Lisa Mantchev - 2014
    But soon it’s discovered that Warwick killed dozens of people as he strove to perfect another improved Ticker for Penny, and he’s put on trial for mass murder. On the last day of Warwick’s trial, the Farthings’ factory is bombed, Penny’s parents disappear, and Penny and her brother, Nic, receive a ransom note demanding all of their Augmentation research if they want to see their parents again. Is someone trying to destroy the Farthings...or is the motive more sinister?Desperate to reunite their family and rescue their research, Penny and her brother recruit fiery baker Violet Nesselrode, gentleman-about-town Sebastian Stirling, and Marcus Kingsley, a young army general who has his own reasons for wanting to lift the veil between this world and the next. Wagers are placed, friends are lost, romance stages an ambush, and time is running out for the girl with the clockwork heart.