Book picks similar to
The Bold Frontier by John Jakes


historical-fiction
western
john-jakes
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West of Here


Jonathan Evison - 2011
    A failed accountant by the name of Ethan Thornburgh has just arrived in Port Bonita to reclaim the woman he loves and start a family. Ethan’s obsession with a brighter future impels the damming of the mighty Elwha to harness its power and put Port Bonita on the map.More than a century later, his great-great grandson, a middle manager at a failing fish- packing plant, is destined to oversee the undoing of that vision, as the great Thornburgh dam is marked for demolition, having blocked the very lifeline that could have sustained the town. West of Here is a grand and playful odyssey, a multilayered saga of destiny and greed, adventure and passion, that chronicles the life of one small town, turning America’s history into myth, and myth into a nation’s shared experience.

Glory Dust


Robert Vaughan - 2015
    Now they're fighting for justice and revenge! They Came from one Missouri family, but Lance and Buck Chaney had been fighting on opposite sides of the war—until they were brought together ba a shipment of gold dust. Fighting for the Confederacy, Buck had been ordered to hijack the gold his brother's Union troops were bringing north to Jefferson City. By the time the skirmish was over the shipment of gold was missing. Now the former enemies have joined together again—to hunt down the man who had taken the gold from them both in an act of treachery and bloodshed.

Return of the Outlaw


C.M. Curtis - 2009
    He heard a small sound and spun around. Directly in front of him loomed a dark figure and for the tiniest instant he looked into a pair of eyes--and in those eyes he saw hell. Then, the razor-sharp steel of Lopez' knife sent him there." They killed his friends, stole his ranch, and took from him the woman he loves. They branded him an outlaw, accusing him of the very crimes they committed. But they're about to learn that taking everything away from him has turned this Civil War veteran into the most dangerous kind of man there is: The kind that has nothing left to lose. Jeff Havens has a fast gun and a long memory--and he's back. RETURN OF THE OUTLAW has sold thousands of copies worldwide, making it a #1 Bestseller, and readers have compared Curtis to the great western authors of old like Louis L'Amour, Zane Grey, Ernest Haycox, and Luke Short.

Give-a-Damn Jones


Bill Pronzini - 2018
    And they certainly weren’t all heroes.Give-a-Damn Jones, a free-spirited itinerant typographer, hates his nickname almost as much as the rumors spread about him. He’s a kind soul who keeps finding himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.That’s what happened in Box Elder, a small Montana town. Tensions are running high, and anything (or anyone) could be the fuse to ignite them: a recently released convict trying to prove his innocence, a prominent cattleman who craves respect at any cost, a wily traveling dentist at odds with a violent local blacksmith, or a firebrand of an editor who is determined to unlock the town’s secrets.Jones walks into the middle of it all, and this time, he may be the hero that this town needs.

Noir


Christopher MooreChristopher Moore - 2018
    Summer, 1947. A dame walks into a saloon . . .It’s not every afternoon that an enigmatic, comely blonde named Stilton (like the cheese) walks into the scruffy gin joint where Sammy "Two Toes" Tiffin tends bar. It’s love at first sight, but before Sammy can make his move, an Air Force general named Remy arrives with some urgent business. ’Cause when you need something done, Sammy is the guy to go to; he’s got the connections on the street.Meanwhile, a suspicious flying object has been spotted up the Pacific coast in Washington State near Mount Rainer, followed by a mysterious plane crash in a distant patch of desert in New Mexico that goes by the name Roswell. But the real weirdness is happening on the streets of the City by the Bay.When one of Sammy’s schemes goes south and the Cheese mysteriously vanishes, Sammy is forced to contend with his own dark secrets—and more than a few strange goings on—if he wants to find his girl.

Love by the Letter


Melissa Jagears - 2013
    He's been too busy helping to provide for his family. Now that he's heading west, Dex is hoping to start a family of his own. However, his attempt to acquire a mail-order bride fails miserably when the lady writes back ridiculing his terrible spelling. Rachel Oliver may be the last person he wants to know what a dunce he is, but she's also the smartest woman in town--and it's clear he needs her help.Rachel Oliver has lingered in town for three years secretly mooning over Dex Stanton, but now she's done. If the fool wants to write to a mail-order bride company, so be it. Once she begins giving Dex lessons, however, Rachel realizes she may not be prepared to give up just yet.As their time together runs short, can two of the most stubborn people in town set aside their pride long enough to find love?Love by the Letter is a companion novella to A Bride for Keeps, Melissa Jagears's full-length debut novel available fall 2013. Includes an extended sneak peek at A Bride for Keeps.

The Office of Historical Corrections


Danielle Evans - 2020
    With The Office of Historical Corrections, Evans zooms in on particular moments and relationships in her characters' lives in a way that allows them to speak to larger issues of race, culture, and history. She introduces us to Black and multiracial characters who are experiencing the universal confusions of lust and love, and getting walloped by grief—all while exploring how history haunts us, personally and collectively. Ultimately, she provokes us to think about the truths of American history—about who gets to tell them, and the cost of setting the record straight.In "Boys Go to Jupiter," a white college student tries to reinvent herself after a photo of her in a Confederate-flag bikini goes viral. In "Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain," a photojournalist is forced to confront her own losses while attending an old friend's unexpectedly dramatic wedding. And in the eye-opening title novella, a black scholar from Washington, DC, is drawn into a complex historical mystery that spans generations and puts her job, her love life, and her oldest friendship at risk.

Fools Crow


James Welch - 1986
    The invasion of white society threatens to change their traditional way of life, and they must choose to fight or assimilate. The story is a powerful portrait of a fading way of life. The story culminates with the historic Marias Massacre of 1870, in which the U.S. Cavalry mistakenly killed a friendly band of Blackfeet, consisting mostly of non-combatants."A major contribution to Native American literature." -- Wallace Stegner.

The Berlin Project


Gregory Benford - 2017
    After convincing General Groves of his new method, Cohen and his team of scientists work at Oak Ridge preparing to have a nuclear bomb ready to drop by the summer of 1944 in an effort to stop the war on the western front. What ensues is an altered account of World War II in this taut thriller. Combining fascinating science with intimate and true accounts of several members of The Manhattan Project, The Berlin Project is an astounding novel that reimagines history and what could have happened if the atom bomb was ready in time to stop Hitler from killing millions of people.

The Ranger's Wife


Eveline Hart - 2017
    Having moved to the American Frontier to escape his life as a political pawn for his family, he is content. Everything changes when he receives a letter from his father explaining that he is to marry one Elizabeth “Piper” Renwick. During their trip from Boston to Detroit, Jack learns what it means to be in love while dealing with bankers, a heist, and ultimately Piper- a woman capable of outwitting him at every turn. Will their adventure together on the frontier draw the two of them together or force them apart?

Panhandle


Brett Cogburn - 2012
    The Texas Panhandle of the late 1880s is the last great open range of American legend. Into that wild unknown country ride two young cowboys. Nate Reynolds is the scion of a well-to-do family who lit out for the Panhandle in search of adventure--and gold. Billy Champion is a devil-may-care ne'er-do-well with a stubborn streak and an eye for the ladies. Together they aim to rid this violent territory full of rustlers, horse thieves, and the rest of the devils who slaughter innocents with no remorse. But when these friends fall for the same green-eyed beauty, their brotherhood will be put to the test. For in a land where your fortunes can change at the cock of a hammer, a man has to stay on his guard if he's going to protect what's rightly his--and live to enjoy it. . .In his gritty, pounding debut novel, Brett Cogburn, author of Rooster: The Life and Times of the Real Rooster Cogburn, The Man Who Inspired True Grit, proves he's equal to the task of writing the next great American western.Some folks are just born to tell tall tales. Brett Cogburn was reared in Texas and the mountains of Southeastern Oklahoma. He was fortunate enough for many years to make his living from the back of a horse, where on cold mornings cowboys still straddled frisky broncs and dragged calves to the branding fire on the end of a rope from their saddlehorns. Growing up around ranches, livestock auctions, and backwoods hunting camps filled Brett's head with stories, and he never forgot a one. In his own words: "My grandfather taught me to ride a bucking horse, my mother gave me a love of reading, and my father taught me how to hunt my own meat and shoot straight. Cowboys are just as wild as they ever were, and I've been damn lucky to have known more than a few." The West is still teaching him how to write. Brett Cogburn lives in Oklahoma with his family.

The Scout


Harry Combs - 1995
    a towering tale of dreams unfettered, of mustangs running free, and of young men riding hell-bent-for-leather into Indian country for no other reason than they were young, brave and wild.By 1900 the Old West was vanishing, but the man many called its fastest gun was still alive.  By then Car Brules had shut himself and his secrets away in a cabin on Colorado's Lone Cone Peak.  Only one person knew his real story, a boy of eleven who became his friend and heard his extraordinary tales in 1909.  The Scout is that unforgettable story, just as young Steven Cartwright heard it, just as Brules told it: hard and gritty, wry with a cowboy's humor, and true to the spirits of all those who loved the west--and died for it--from Custer to Crazy Horse.Many hard, hurting things had driven Cat Brules to become the man he was.  The death of his beloved Shoshone bride, Wild Rose, was one of them.  Months after Brules lost her--brutally and far too soon--Wild Rose still came to him in his dreams.  With a void in his heart and a reckless spirit, Brules signed on as a Scout for General George Crook, whose cavalry was headed into the Badlands. Then, the U.S. Army still didn't know that there were fifteen thousand Sioux and Cheyenne in those Wyoming foothills, and under chiefs Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, every one of them was willing to fight to the death to live free.Brules's account of the violence that ensued, told with eyewitness immediacy and chilling authenticity, is one of courage and shame as he rides the trail toward the Little Big Horn and the battles that followed.  Seeing for himself the dying of a way of life, Brules tells a searing truth about America's history: the betrayal of Custer to the Sioux, the hunting of Geronimo, and the U.S. Army's cruel pursuit of Chief Joseph and his Nez Perce.  And here too are the women who loved Brules: White Antelope, the gentle Indian maiden who wanted what Brules felt he could never give again--and Melisande, the saucy Mormon girl who might be too much for even Cat Brules to handle.Debunking the myths of the Old West and the romanticism of movies, renowned Western writer Harry Combs creates a vision at once more complex, magnificent and genuine--from the make of the rifle to the caliber of the bullet that cut Custer down.  A novel unmatched in excitement and adventure, The Scout lets you smell the cordite, feel a man's hard need for a woman, and discover that the real flesh and blood inhabitants of those legendary days were tougher, bolder and more fascinating than we ever dared to imagine.

I Married Wyatt Earp: The Recollections of Josephine Sarah Marcus Earp


Josephine Marcus Earp - 1976
    "I Married Wyatt Earp will not be the last word on the subject, but it ranks at the top or very near the top of the importatnt books on the Tombstone story and probably the best on the key figure of Wyatt."--Arizona Highways"For anyone remotely interested in this era and the events that punctuated it, this book is an invaluable source."--Remark"A sympathetic recollection of life with Wyatt Earp which reveals as much about "Josie" as Wyatt."--The Journal of San Diego History

West for the Black Hills


Peter Leavell - 2015
    Not many people in Mitchell, a small town in the Dakota Territory, would understand him living with the Sioux Indians who rescued him as a boy. Haunted by the murder of his parents as they traveled West in their covered wagon, he knows it wasn’t Indians who killed them, and his many unanswered questions about that night still torment him. His only desire is to live quietly on his homestead and raise Arabian horses. Until he meets Anna, a beautiful young woman with secrets of her own. Is it his eery and unusual wolf eyes that draw Anna to him? Falling in love was not part of his plan. Can Philip open his heart and tell her how he feels before it’s too late?With Anna a pawn in the corrupt schemes brewing in Mitchell, Philip is forced to become a reluctant gunslinger even as his inner battle gets in the way. Will Philip’s uncannily trained horses and unsurpassed sharpshooting skills help him free Anna and find out what really happened to his family out there in the wilderness?

My Dear Hamilton: A Novel of Eliza Schuyler Hamilton


Stephanie Dray - 2018
    Haunting, moving, and beautifully written, Dray and Kamoie used thousands of letters and original sources to tell Eliza’s story as it’s never been told before—not just as the wronged wife at the center of a political sex scandal—but also as a founding mother who shaped an American legacy in her own right.A general’s daughter…Coming of age on the perilous frontier of revolutionary New York, Elizabeth Schuyler champions the fight for independence. And when she meets Alexander Hamilton, Washington’s penniless but passionate aide-de-camp, she’s captivated by the young officer’s charisma and brilliance. They fall in love, despite Hamilton’s bastard birth and the uncertainties of war.A founding father’s wife...But the union they create—in their marriage and the new nation—is far from perfect. From glittering inaugural balls to bloody street riots, the Hamiltons are at the center of it all—including the political treachery of America’s first sex scandal, which forces Eliza to struggle through heartbreak and betrayal to find forgiveness.The last surviving light of the Revolution…When a duel destroys Eliza’s hard-won peace, the grieving widow fights her husband’s enemies to preserve Alexander’s legacy. But long-buried secrets threaten everything Eliza believes about her marriage and her own legacy. Questioning her tireless devotion to the man and country that have broken her heart, she’s left with one last battle—to understand the flawed man she married and the imperfect union he could never have created without her…