NCW Libraries

Quirt Creek flowed sluggishly between willows which sagged none too gracefully across its deeper pools, or languished beside the rocky stretches that were bone dry from July to October, with a narrow channel in the center where what water there was hurried along to the pools below. For a mile or more, where the land lay fairly level in a platter-like valley set in the lower hills, the mud that rimmed the pools was scored deep with the tracks of the...

Arizona Territory, 1899. Ruby Fortune faces an untenable choice: murder her abusive husband or continue to live with bruises that never heal. One bullet is all it takes. Once known as "Girl Wonder" on the Wild West circuit, Ruby is now a single mother of four boys in her hometown of Jericho, an end-of-the-world mining town north of Tucson. Here, Ruby opens a roadside inn to make ends meet. Drifters, grifters, con men, and prostitutes plow through...

Scorned, pregnant, and facing a life without promise, Pippa Grayhawk is stunned when her father announces that they're leaving their home in Australia to take over his estranged father's sprawling Wyoming ranch. Drawn into bitter family rivalries and feeling like an interloper in her new home, Pippa rides out into the wilderness and meets an intriguing stranger and his pet wolf. The wolf doesn't scare her, but she's very much afraid to trust another...

The wild Montana mountains are no place for an aging widow to live alone with dementia. And when Cathleen Donaghue discovers the poor woman’s condition, there’s no way she’ll walk away without helping. After all, she left her comfortable Boston home to help her brothers with their mining town medical practice because she wanted to make a difference. But the wild elements she encounters on this mission of mercy are nothing like she expected,...

In the Arizona Territory of the 1870's, Marshal Sam Mackenna is the only living person who knows the tortuous route to the fabulous "Cañon del Oro". During his journey, Mackenna is captured by Colorado, a brutal Mexican bandit who has long sought his death. But, if Mackenna is to lead the cutthroat gang to the lost treasure, Colorado must keep him alive.

Foreign correspondent Lola Wicks is livid. She's been downsized from her Kabul posting. Her editor reassigns her to a stateside suburban beat formerly the province of interns. When she arrives in Montana for some R&R at a friend's cabin, her friend is nowhere in sight. Anger turns to terror when Lola discovers her friend shot dead. She can't get out of Montana fast enough, until she finds that she can't get out at all. She's held as a potential witness,...

"Now that her sisters are both married, Felicity Courtney manages the Courtney Boardinghouse alone. After nearly collapsing from exhaustion while caring for an invalid man and his wife who are staying at the boardinghouse, Felicity posts an advertisement for a hired hand. Philip Berg, a prince in disguise, is hiding in Fairplay while attempting to stay one step ahead of an assassin. When the spirited Felicity Courtney tacks up a notice that she is...

National Book Award Finalist: The "impressive" conclusion to the "magisterial trilogy on the mythology of violence in American history" (Film Quarterly). "The myth of the Western frontier-which assumes that whites' conquest of Native Americans and the taming of the wilderness were preordained means to a progressive, civilized society-is embedded in our national psyche. U.S. troops called Vietnam 'Indian country.' President John Kennedy invoked 'New...

On the morning of June 25, 1876, a force of 700 men from the 7th US Calvary led by General George Armstrong Custer attacked an Indian encampment on the banks of the Little Big Horn River. Unbeknownst to Custer, he faced the combined might of the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes, led by their greatest chiefs, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. Advised by his Indian scouts not to attack, the foolhardy general ignored their warnings and trusted to "Custer's...

Une jeune femme qui part en voyage pour oublier un amour perdu et des cow-boys qui font des rencontres saugrenues, deux récits de l'Ouest bien différents! Les Indiens d'Amérique trouvaient leur juste place au sein de la nature. La sagesse séculaire de ces peuples à l'heure o notre terre semble bien menacée est toujours d'actualité... Ce western littéraire commence par une « Passion amérindienne »; une femme effectue un voyage initiatique...