Staff Picks

This book is one of the most powerful, fulfilling Westerns I've read. It contains a great deal of action (and keeps the reader in suspense about how it will play out), but also digs deeper into the element of identity, character, and what it means to be a hero.

Publisher’s description:

John Russell, a young man nicknamed Hombre by the Apaches who raised him, has a deadly confrontation with a determined gang of stagecoach robbers.

Find Hombre in our online catalog

Recommended by a friend of mine, this book is among my favorites so far. It tells the story of an aging veteran who reads news from newspapers at public gatherings, and is transporting back to her family a 10-year old girl who was a captive of the Kiowa. An unforgettable tale.

Publisher description:

In the aftermath of the Civil War, an aging itinerant news reader agrees to transport a young captive of the Kiowa back to her people in this exquisitely rendered, morally complex, multilayered novel of historical fiction from the author of Enemy Women that explores the boundaries of family, responsibility, honor, and trust. In the wake of the Civil War, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd travels through northern Texas, giving live readings from newspapers to paying audiences hungry for news of the world. An elderly widower who has lived through three wars and fought in two of them, the captain enjoys his rootless, solitary existence. In Wichita Falls, he is offered a $50 gold piece to deliver a young orphan to her relatives in San Antonio. Four years earlier, a band of Kiowa raiders killed Johanna's parents and sister; sparing the little girl, they raised her as one of their own. Recently rescued by the U.S. army, the ten-year-old has once again been torn away from the only home she knows. Their 400-mile journey south through unsettled territory and unforgiving terrain proves difficult and at times dangerous. Johanna has forgotten the English language, tries to escape at every opportunity, throws away her shoes, and refuses to act "civilized." Yet as the miles pass, the two lonely survivors tentatively begin to trust each other, forming a bond that marks the difference between life and death in this treacherous land. Arriving in San Antonio, the reunion is neither happy nor welcome. The captain must hand Johanna over to an aunt and uncle she does not remember--strangers who regard her as an unwanted burden. A respectable man, Captain Kidd is faced with a terrible choice: abandon the girl to her fate or become--in the eyes of the law--a kidnapper himself.

 

 

Publisher's description:

It's the spring of 1877 and sixteen-year-old Bridget is already disillusioned when she arrives penniless in Dodge City with only her wits to keep her alive. Thanks to the allure of her bright red hair and country-girl beauty, she's recruited to work at the Buffalo Queen, the only brothel in town run by women. Bridget takes to brothel life, appreciating the good food, good pay, and good friendships she forms with her fellow "sporting women." But as winter approaches, Bridget learns just how fleeting stability can be. With the arrival of out-of-towners--some ominous and downright menacing, others more alluring but potentially dangerous in their own ways, including a legendary female gunfighter who steals Bridget's heart--tensions in Dodge City run high. When the Buffalo Queen's peace and stability are threatened, Bridget must decide what she owes to the people she loves and what it looks like to claim her own destiny. A thoroughly modern reimagining of the Western genre, Lucky Red is a masterfully crafted, propulsive tale of adventure, loyalty, desire, and love.

 

This book follows 17-year-old Lovisa King as she and her family traverse the Oregon Trail in search of a better life. Twenty-two family members on five wagons set off on the one of the most dangerous and exciting voyages of all time. They experience disease, misfortune, love, loss, faith, and some of the most challenging terrain this country has to offer. Will they arrive whole in the fabled "West" of their dreams, or will they fall apart on the long, arduous journey? This book is historical fiction but based off the surviving stories and journals of the King family, so many of the trials and triumphs are real and offer great insight to what life was actually like on the Oregon Trail.

 

Publisher's description: 

Follows headstrong, optimistic, seventeen-year-old Lovisa King and her pioneer family, three generations strong, as they make the arduous journey west with a wagon train along the Oregon Trail.

Find  A Heart for Any Fate: Westward to Oregon, 1845 in our online catalog. 

When Rapunzel learns that the woman she has always called Mother is not actually her mother--and that her real mother has been enslaved by Mother Gothel--she is sent to live in a high tower deep in the forest. Rapunzel uses her hair to escape, and vows to free her mother. I love how Rapunzel takes risks and learns from her mistakes, and does not allow setbacks to crush her spirit. Her friend Jack gets his own story in Calamity Jack.

 

Publisher description: 

Rapunzel escapes her tower-prison all on her own, only to discover a world beyond what she'd ever known before. Determined to rescue her real mother and to seek revenge on her kidnapper would-be mother, Rapunzel and her very long braids team up with Jack (of Giant-killing fame), and together they perform daring deeds and rescues all over the Western landscape, eventually winning the justice they so well deserve.

 

Set in the fantasy country of Arketta, this western-inspired tale follows five "good luck girls" as they escape their violent, oppressive life in search of freedom and justice. An action-packed read about trauma, friendship, the strength to trust--and also ghosts.

 

Publisher description:

The country of Arketta calls them Good Luck Girls--they know their luck is anything but. Sold to a welcome house as children and branded with cursed markings. Trapped in a life they would never have chosen. When Clementine accidentally kills a man, the girls risk a dangerous escape and harrowing journey to find freedom, justice, and revenge in a country that wants them to have none of those things. Pursued by Arketta's most vicious and powerful forces, both human and inhuman, their only hope lies in a bedtime story passed from one Good Luck Girl to another, a story that only the youngest or most desperate would ever believe. It's going to take more than luck for them all to survive.

 

Find The Good Luck Girls in our online catalog.

If you think men can't write realistic, whip-smart women, you haven't met 14-year-old Mattie Ross. The story of her quest to avenge her murdered father, this book was so funny in spots that I laughed out loud and read parts of it aloud to my family. But it didn't look away from the real violence, ugliness, and racism of the Old West. I devoured this classic in two days.

 

Publisher description:

This book is Portis's most famous novel and the basis for the movie of the same name starring John Wayne. It tells the story of Mattie Ross, a 14-year-old girl from Arkansas in the 1870s, who sets out one winter to avenge the murder of her father.

 

The Son is an epic, multigenerational saga of power, blood, and land that follows the rise of one unforgettable Texas family from the Comanche raids of the 1800s to the border raids of the early 1900s to the oil booms of the 20th century.  The Son was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize the year that The Goldfinch took us by storm.