The Mapmaker's Children


Sarah McCoy - 2014
    She boldly embraces this calling after being told the shocking news that she can’t bear children, but as the country steers toward bloody civil war, Sarah faces difficult sacrifices that could put all she loves in peril.   Eden, a modern woman desperate to conceive a child with her husband, moves to an old house in the suburbs and discovers a porcelain head hidden in the root cellar—the remains of an Underground Railroad doll with an extraordinary past of secret messages, danger and deliverance.    Ingeniously plotted to a riveting end, Sarah and Eden’s woven lives connect the past to the present, forcing each of them to define courage, family, love, and legacy in a new way.

Bound for the Promise-Land


Troy D. Smith - 2000
    From fugitive to Medal of Honor winner, Mann carries on to rise above the ignorance and intolerance of those who seek to bring him down; somehow gaining strength from the unimaginable losses he suffers and his own self doubt. Troy Smith does a great job of telling this man's story; providing a real insight not only to the emotional struggle that made Alfred Mann the individual he was, but the era that forged his heroic character. – Kit Prate 2001 WWA Spur Award Winner for Best Original Paperback

Red Lands Outlaw: the Ballad of Henry Starr


Phil Truman - 2012
    A good read.” -- Dusty Richards, Spur and Wrangler Award winning author “Author Phil Truman captured a slice of Indian Territory history and has woven it into an interesting period novel. Anyone who loves the history of the West will enjoy Red Lands Outlaw: the Ballad of Henry Starr.” -- Tammy Hinton, author and winner of the Will Rogers Medallion Award for Unbridled "Truman’s storytelling shines throughout..." -- Kathleen Rice Adams, Western Fictioneers In the last years of the tough and woolly land called Indian Territory, and the first of the new state of Oklahoma, the outlaw Henry Starr rides roughshod through its midst. A native son of “The Nations” he’s more Scotch-Irish than Cherokee, but scorned by both. Never really wanted to journey west of the law, yet fate seems to insist. He’s falsely accused of horse-thieving at sixteen, sentenced to hang for murder at nineteen by Judge Isaac Parker, but escapes the gallows on a technicality. Given that opportunity, the charming, handsome, mild-mannered Henry Starr spends the rest of his life becoming the most prolific bank robber the West has ever known.

Battle Scars: A Collection of Short Stories Volume I


David Cook - 2015
    Outpost - A prelude to Blood on the Snow with Jack Hallam. The Emerald Graves - Lorn Mullone at the Battle of Vinegar Hill. Pipe and Drum - A tale of the Battle of Assaye seen through the eyes of a Highlander of the 78th Foot. Plains Wolf - Rifleman Arthur Cadoc impresses a certain Spanish Guerrillero. Summer is Coming - There is nothing more horrific than the horrors of the French retreat in icy Russia, 1812. The Diabolical Circumstance of Captain Bartholomew Chivers - A funny story in the vein of Harry Flashman. Flowers of Toulouse - A chilling story. Lamentation - A redcoat looks back on his life after the Battle of New Orleans. Enemy at the Gates - The bloody defence of Hougoumont. The Bravest of the Brave - Ney's final moments at Waterloo.

The Beguiled


Thomas Cullinan - 1966
    Almost immediately he sets about beguiling the three women and five teenage girls stranded in this outpost of Southern gentility, eliciting their love and fear, pity and infatuation, and pitting them against one another in a bid for his freedom. But as the women are revealed for what they really are, a sense of ominous foreboding closes in on the soldier, and the question becomes: Just who is the beguiled?

The Lincoln Assassination


John Butler Ford - 2015
    But there is far more to the story, including the bizarre scheme that Booth first concocted to kidnap Lincoln and trade him for Confederate soldiers held in Northern prisons. Here is the full story of the plot, the bumbling plotters that Booth recruited, Lincoln's lingering death, the manhunt for the assassin, and the trial of the conspirators. It is essential knowledge of a tragedy that shaped America for a century to come.

Today We Go Home: A Novel


Kelli Estes - 2019
    Larkin Bennett has always known her place, whether it’s surrounded by her loving family in the lush greenery of the Pacific Northwest, or riding on a dusty convoy in Afghanistan. But all that changed the day tragedy struck her unit and took away everything she held dear. Soon after, Larkin discovers an unexpected treasure: the diary of Emily Wilson, a young woman who disguised herself as a man to fight for the Union in the Civil War. As Larkin struggles to heal, she finds herself drawn deep into Emily’s life and the secrets she kept. Indiana, 1861. The only thing more dangerous to Emily Wilson than a rebel soldier is her own comrades in the Union. But in the minds of her fellow soldiers, if it dresses like a man, swears like a man, and shoots like a man, it must be a man. As the war marches on and takes its terrible toll, Emily begins to question everything she has been told about the freedom she is supposed to be fighting for.

Storm Gold


Lee Nelson - 1996
     One of the last adn largest Spanish settlements was located on what is now the Ute Indian Reservation at Rock Creek. According to Ute legends, the biggest slaughter of white men by Indians didn't occur at the Little Big Horn, but at Rock Creek, where in 1840 nearly one thousand Spaniards were slaughtered by Indians, ending once and for all the era of the Spanish gold seekers. This story is about that last great battle, told through the eyes of Utah's favorite writer of historical fiction, Lee Nelson.

Our Simple Gifts: Civil War Christmas Tales


Owen Parry - 2002
    A writer whose work has been called, “gripping” (Washington Post), “top-notch” (Chicago Tribune), and “marvelous historical fiction” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch), Parry brings us a moving quartet of unforgettable tales that celebrate the simple and often forgotten pleasures of generosity, friends, kindness, and family. Our Simple Gifts is a wonderful gift of hope and joy from an unparalleled storyteller.

John Brown's Body


Stephen Vincent Benét - 1928
    A book of great energy and sweep, it swings into view the entire course of that terrible and decisive war, lighting up the lives of soldiers, leaders, and civilians, North and South, amidst the conflict. Generations of readers have found the book a compelling and moving experience.

The Guns of the South


Harry Turtledove - 1992
    Lee faces defeat. The Army of Northern Virginia is ragged and ill-equpped. Gettysburg has broken the back of the Confederacy and decimated its manpower.Then, Andries Rhoodie, a strange man with an unplaceable accent, approaches Lee with an extraordinary offer. Rhoodie demonstrates an amazing rifle: Its rate of fire is incredible, its lethal efficiency breathtaking--and Rhoodie guarantees unlimited quantitites to the Confederates.The name of the weapon is the AK-47...."It is absolutely unique--without question the most fascinating Civil War novel I have ever read." –Professor James M. McPherson – Pultizer Prize winning Battle Cry of Freedom

April Morning


Howard Fast - 1961
    Your hands will be sweating and you will shake a little as you grip your musket because never have you shot with the aim of killing a man. But you will shoot, and shoot again and again while your shoulder aches from your musket's kick and the tight, disciplined red column bleeds and wavers and breaks and you begin to shout at the top of your lungs because you are there, at the birth of freedom—you're a veteran of the Battle of Lexington, and you've helped whip the King's best soldiers...

Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War


Karen Abbott - 2014
    Emma Edmonds cut off her hair and assumed the identity of a man to enlist as a Union private, witnessing the bloodiest battles of the Civil War. The beautiful widow, Rose O’Neale Greenhow, engaged in affairs with powerful Northern politicians to gather intelligence for the Confederacy, and used her young daughter to send information to Southern generals. Elizabeth Van Lew, a wealthy Richmond abolitionist, hid behind her proper Southern manners as she orchestrated a far-reaching espionage ring, right under the noses of suspicious rebel detectives.Using a wealth of primary source material and interviews with the spies’ descendants, Abbott seamlessly weaves the adventures of these four heroines throughout the tumultuous years of the war. With a cast of real-life characters including Walt Whitman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, General Stonewall Jackson, detective Allan Pinkerton, Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, and Emperor Napoleon III, Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy draws you into the war as these daring women lived it.Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy contains 39 black & white photos and 3 maps.

The Expendables


Leonard B. Scott - 1991
    This is the story of the men who fought with them -- and the 304 who didn't return.