Book picks similar to
Desert Gold by Zane Grey


western
westerns
fiction
classics

Against the Tide


Elizabeth Camden - 2012
    Now, she's finally carved out a perfect life for herself--a life of stability and order with no changes, surprises, or chaos of any kind. She adores her apartment overlooking the bustling Boston Harbor, and her skill with languages has landed her a secure position as a translator for the U.S. Navy.However, it is her talent for translation that brings her into contact with Alexander Banebridge, or "Bane," a man who equally attracts and aggravates her. When Bane hires Lydia to translate a seemingly innocuous collection of European documents, she hesitantly agrees, only to discover she is in over her head.Just as Bane's charm begins to win her over, Lydia learns he is driven by a secret campaign against some of the most dangerous criminals on the East Coast, compelled by his faith and his past. Bane forbids any involvement on Lydia's part, but when the criminals gain the upper hand, it is Lydia on whom he must depend.

Babbitt


Sinclair Lewis - 1922
    The controversy provoked by Babbitt was influential in the decision to award the Nobel Prize in Literature to Lewis in 1930.

A Man to Call My Own


Johanna Lindsey - 2003
    It is a harrowing journey, but plain-looking Marian welcomes the challenge of their adventure, while beautiful Amanda complains at every turn. And when they need rescuing, cowboy Chad Kinkaid is the strong, sexy hero for the job. Amanda's beauty catches Chad's eye, but it is Marian's daring spirit and hidden passion that spark his desire for her — a sensual attraction that lands them in a romantic entanglement Marian is not prepare to handle. Tied to him by the fate of her aunt's ranch, Marian must face a proud cowboy who's determined to convince her — whether it means wooing her under the stars of the open range or following her back East — that she's the only woman for him...

The Silver Music Box


Mina Baites - 2017
    For Paul, with love. Jewish silversmith Johann Blumenthal engraved those words on his most exquisite creation, a singing filigree bird inside a tiny ornamented box. He crafted this treasure for his young son before leaving to fight in a terrible war to honor his beloved country—a country that would soon turn against his own family.A half century later, Londoner Lilian Morrison inherits the box after the death of her parents. Though the silver is tarnished and dented, this much-loved treasure is also a link to an astonishing past. With the keepsake is a letter from Lilian’s mother, telling her daughter for the first time that she was adopted. Too young to remember, Lilian was rescued from a Germany in the grips of the Holocaust. Now only she can trace what happened to a family who scattered to the reaches of the world, a family forced to choose between their heritage and their dreams for the future.

Across the Winding River


Aimie K. Runyan - 2020
    His only request of his daughter is to go through the long-forgotten box of memorabilia from his days as a medic on the western front. Then, among his wartime souvenirs, Beth finds a photograph of her father with an adoring and beautiful stranger—a photograph worth a thousand questions.It was 1944 when Max was drawn into the underground resistance by the fearless German wife of a Nazi officer. Together, she and Max were willing to risk everything for what they believed was right. Ahead of them lay a dangerous romance, a dream of escape, and a destiny over which neither had control.But Max isn’t alone in his haunting remembrances of war. In a nearby private care home is a fragile German-born woman with her own past to share. Only when the two women meet does Beth realize how much more to her father there is to know, all the ways in which his heart still breaks, and the closure he needs to heal it.

Sixteen Brides


Stephanie Grace Whitson - 2010
    Louis respond to a series of meetings conducted by a land speculator who lures them west by promising "prime homesteads" in a "booming community." Unbeknownst to them, the speculator's true motive is to find an excuse to bring women to the fledging community of Plum Grove, Nebraska, in hopes they will accept marriage proposals shortly after their arrival!Sparks fly when these unsuspecting widows meet the men who are waiting for them. These women are going to need all the courage and faith they can muster to survive these unwanted circumstances--especially when they begin to discover that none of them is exactly who she appears to be.

The Grave Tattoo


Val McDermid - 2006
    What she never expected was to find herself at the heart of a 200-year-old mystery that still has the power to put lives on the line. And with each new lead she pursues, death follows hard on her heels….

Doc


Mary Doria Russell - 2011
    The place is Dodge City, Kansas, a saloon-filled cow town jammed with liquored-up adolescent cowboys and young Irish hookers. Violence is random and routine, but when the burned body of a mixed-blood boy named Johnnie Sanders is discovered, his death shocks a part-time policeman named Wyatt Earp. And it is a matter of strangely personal importance to Doc Holliday, the frail twenty-six-year-old dentist who has just opened an office at No. 24 Dodge House.Beautifully educated, born to the life of a Southern gentleman, Dr. John Henry Holliday is given an awful choice at the age of twenty-two: die within months in Atlanta or leave everyone and everything he loves in the hope that the dry air and sunshine of the West will restore him to health. Young, scared, lonely, and sick, he arrives on the Texas frontier just as an economic crash wrecks the dreams of a nation. Soon, with few alternatives open to him, Doc Holliday is gambling professionally; he is also living with Mária Katarina Harony, a high-strung Hungarian whore with dazzling turquoise eyes, who can quote Latin classics right back at him. Kate makes it her business to find Doc the high-stakes poker games that will support them both in high style. It is Kate who insists that the couple travel to Dodge City, because “that’s where the money is.” And that is where the unlikely friendship of Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp really begins—before Wyatt Earp is the prototype of the square-jawed, fearless lawman; before Doc Holliday is the quintessential frontier gambler; before the gunfight at the O.K. Corral links their names forever in American frontier mythology—when neither man wanted fame or deserved notoriety.Authentic, moving, and witty, Maria Doria Russell’s fifth novel redefines these two towering figures of the American West and brings to life an extraordinary cast of historical characters, including Holliday’s unforgettable companion, Kate. First and last, however, Doc is John Henry Holliday’s story, written with compassion, humor, and respect by one of our greatest contemporary storytellers.

Life on the Mississippi


Mark Twain - 1883
    The book that earned Mark Twain his first recognition as a serious writer... Discover the magic of life on the Mississippi. At once a romantic history of a mighty river, an autobiographical account of Mark Twain's early steamboat days, and a storehouse of humorous anecdotes and sketches, Life on the Mississippi is the raw material from which Twain wrote his finest novel: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . "The Lincoln of our literature." (William Dean Howells)

Hearts Awakening


Delia Parr - 2010
    But Jackson Smith quickly realizes that Ellie's presence may solve his own problems--both the rearing of his young boys and the scandal that surrounds his first marriage.When a marriage of convenience is offered, Ellie is initially humiliated. Though she is past the age most women marry, she has more pride than to agree to his outlandish suggestion. Yet what options does she have? To marry would mean a home and stability. So despite the rumors circling Jackson and his first wife, Ellie accepts this unlikely proposal...

The Lion's Daughter


Loretta Chase - 1992
    She's determined to avenge the murder of her beloved father, an enigmatic English aristocrat who lived in self-imposed exile. Honor demands that Esme let nothing and nobody stand in her way. That includes the handsome wastrel who's become entangled in her life, whose charm does not make up for his lazy and irresponsible character.Having gambled away his entire family fortune, Varian St. George, Lord Edenmont, now lives by his wits and winning ways. A man who has always taken the path of least resistance — preferably in soft beds with willing women — he does not want to become embroiled in a mad quest with a hot-tempered and heavily armed redhead.But forced to travel together through an exotic land, the mismatched pair soon discovers that friction can produce some very dangerous sparks ...

The Outcasts


Kathleen Kent - 2013
    After escaping the Texas brothel where she'd been a virtual prisoner, Lucinda Carter heads for Middle Bayou to meet her lover, who has a plan to make them both rich, chasing rumors of a pirate's buried treasure. Meanwhile Nate Cannon, a young Texas policeman with a pure heart and a strong sense of justice, is on the hunt for a ruthless killer named McGill who has claimed the lives of men, women, and even children across the frontier. Who--if anyone--will survive when their paths finally cross? As Lucinda and Nate's stories converge, guns are drawn, debts are paid, and Kathleen Kent delivers an unforgettable portrait of a woman who will stop at nothing to make a new life for herself.

Absolution


Patrick Flanery - 2012
    Clare comes to learn that in this conflict the dead do not stay buried, and the missing return in other forms--such as the small child present in her daughter's last days who has reappeared, posing as Clare's official biographer. Sam Leroux, a South African expatriate returning to Cape Town after many years in New York, gradually earns Clare's trust, his own ghosts emerging from the histories that he and Clare begin to unravel, leading them both along a path in search of reconciliation and forgiveness.

The Hanover Square Affair


Ashley Gardner - 2003
    Cavalry captain Gabriel Lacey returns to Regency London from the Napoleonic wars, burned out, fighting melancholia, his career ended. His interest is perked when he learns of a missing girl, possibly kidnapped by a prominent member of Parliament. Lacey's search for the girl leads to the discovery of murder, corruption, and dealings with a leader of the underworld. He faces his own disorientation transitioning from a soldier's life to the civilian world at the same time, redefining his role with his former commanding officer and making new friends--from the top of society to the street girls of Covent Garden.#1 of the Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries series.This is a full-length novel, e-version of The Hanover Square Affair, previously published in print by Berkley Prime Crime.

Garden of Beasts


Jeffery Deaver - 2004
    But when a hit goes wrong and Schumann is nabbed, he’s offered a stark choice: kill Reinhard Ernst, the man behind Hitler’s rearmament scheme, and walk free forever—or be sent to Sing-Sing and the electric chair.The instant Paul sets foot in Berlin his mission becomes a deadly cat-and-mouse chase, with danger and betrayal lurking at every turn. For the next forty-eight hours, as the city prepares for the coming summer Olympics, Schumann stalks Ernst, while a dogged criminal police officer and the entire Third Reich security apparatus search frantically for the American. Packed with fascinating period detail and featuring a cast of perfectly realized local characters, Olympic athletes, and senior Nazi officials—some real, some fictional—Garden of Beasts dishes up breathtaking action, a wrenching look at Nazi-era Berlin, and a series of stunning plot twists. It is classic Deaver. (And there is also a slight Lincoln Rhyme connection for the discerning reader to find.)