Adventure fiction: Westerns Books

Discover six classic novels as you follow the footsteps of the trailblazers who settled the American West.  As the American West opened up to settlers after the Civil War, people were eager for tales of great adventures, endless possibilities, and...

From a three-time Spur Awardwinner comes the tale of an orphaned boy who is forced to become a man.Mark Kelton is eighteen years old-part boy, part man. On the trail to set up a ranch in eastern Oregon, his parents are killed by an unknown assailant and...

"Brand practices his art to something like perfection." -The New York Times"Max Brand is the Shakespeare of the Western range." -Kirkus ReviewsAfter Andrew Lanning's father dies, his Uncle Jasper takes him under his wing and raises him for the next...

Gunslingers. Lawmen. Snake-oil Salesmen. Cowboys. Mad Scientists. And a few monsters.The Old West has never been wilder!THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UNCANNY presents sixteen original and never-before-published adventures by some of today' s most visionary...

"Half a Mile from Tucson" is a captivating novel set in the early 20th century, as the West was experiencing a significant transformation, marked by the end of the Civil War and the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869. Against this...

Colton Bonner was orphaned at the age of 14. New to the West, he was forced to make his own way in a strange land with dangers he had yet to imagine. To survive, he went from job to job trying to find his place in this new environment. Colton became a...

Using the alias of "The Chicago Kid", Ben Wright trails Coyote Jack Roberts and his outlaw gang, the men who killed Ben's grandfather when they robbed the bank at Little Black Water, New Mexico Territory. Ben has vowed to "get" every member of the gang,...

Following in the footsteps of such chroniclers of American absurdity as Cormac McCarthy, Joy Williams, and Charles Portis, Robin McLean's Pity the Beast is a mind-melting feminist Western that pins a tale of sexual violence and vengeance to a canvas...

This riveting work of narrative history vividly brings to life five charismatic and idiosyncratic men who, living within ninety miles of one another, changed the course of history through the invention and refinement of the repeating firearm - the...

Young Harley Cobb comes west after the Civil War and establishes himself in a good job at a flour grinding company in Boulder, Colorado. The girl he fell in love with on the way comes to join him so they can start a new life together. While his wedding...

He telegraphs Judge Parker who then orders him to investigate. During the investigation he falls in love with a woman and clashes with her father, the richest cattle baron in the territory, and he is soon having trouble with this man. As US Marshall,...

In the days of the frontier West, it was not unusual for desperadoes and fugitives from justice to seemingly disappear from the face of the earth. Shadow on the Trail by Zane Grey, one of the bestselling authors of all-time, is the story of one such man...

With the approval of the Elders that have told this story to the author, nowthis legend be told in print to the people of the world. This story is based on emotion, the personal identity of Chasing Hawk/ Will Chase, and the personal philosophy that Will...

Cover art by Jon Langford of The Mekons An eldritch Western noirAuthor has 2 books out in 2021 building up to this novel in 2022

*Nominated for 2022 Phillip K. Dick Award*In this dazzling new novel evoking Westerns, surrealism, epic fantasy, mythology, and circus extravaganzas, World Fantasy Award winner Lavie Tidhar (Central Station) has created an incomparable dreamscape of dark...

The tragic tale of a Montana family ripped apart by scandal and murder: "a significant and elegant addition to the fiction of the American West" (Washington Post).In the summer of 1948, twelve-year-old David Hayden witnessed and experienced a series of...

One night in 1980, a man becomes a monster. Haunted by his past, Travis Stillwell spends his nights searching out women in West Texas honky-tonks. What he does with them doesn't make him proud, just quiets the demons for a little while. But after Travis...

In 1907, the fifteen-year-old French-Canadian Ernest Dufault left his home in Quebec for Montana, where he was promptly arrested as a cattle thief. As a prisoner of the state of Nevada, he passed himself off as an American cowboy named Will James. Over...