New Release -- A Ranger Returns (Lone Star Ranger Volume 9) by James J. Griffin

Nate Stewart and his Texas Ranger partners return to Austin from their grueling assignment in west Texas, expecting only a few days’ rest before they are sent back on the outlaw trail. Instead, they learn that the state legislature has refused to extend funding for most of the Rangers. All but a few have been given their walking papers—placed on indefinite furlough.

Forced to face an uncertain future without the Rangers, Nate and his best friend and partner, Hoot Harrison, travel to the land Nate still owns outside San Saba. With mixed feelings, the pair heads toward Nate’s family's ranch—now, where Nate’s parents and older brother are buried.

But when they reach San Saba, they’re met with guns and force. Someone is attempting to take over all the ranches in the area—including Nate's. Vowing not to lose the land his father had struggled so hard to tame, Nate is determined to unravel the plot—and the people responsible—for the hostility. The trail to the criminals, ironically, takes him back East—to his own home town of Wilmington, Delaware…and someone he’d have never suspected.

Once Nate confronts the man who means to take everything from him, he and Hoot waste no time in getting back to Texas. There, they’ll stand together once more against outlaw guns as A RANGER RETURNS…

EXCERPT

     Nate leaned back against the whitewashed west wall of the Salt Flat Café, where the Rangers had been staying. He was seeking the least bit of shade, since the temperature was already well into the eighties, even at this early hour. He stretched out his legs, and pulled his Stetson over his eyes.

     Boy howdy, a lot sure has happened to me, includin’ sayin’ stuff like ‘boy howdy’, over the past year, he mused. First, I lost my family, then I gained another one, sort of… my Ranger pards. At least the men who killed my mother and father, and Jonathan, are all dead. Me and my pardners made certain of that. I’ve learned that I don’t hate Texas, like I did when my father first dragged our family here, but love almost everything about it, except maybe the dust. I’ve learned how to care for both myself and my horse, and how to survive as a lawman. I’ve been shot by outlaws, and shot them, been in fistfights….

     He shook his head as a soft chuckle escaped his lips. ’Course, I’ve lost more of those than I’ve won. I still have a lot to learn about fist fightin’. I’ve traveled all over most of Texas, and have grown up a whole lot. Gotten a year older, too. I still don’t know what to do with girls, though. Maybe someday. I’ve had to fight white outlaws, Mexican desperadoes, and renegade Indians. Me’n Hoot have had some high times, too. I just hope someday he’ll quit tryin’ to convince me to smoke. I don’t want any part of tobacco. Just can’t stand the stuff. Wonder where we’re headed after Austin. I guess I’ll find out soon enough. Doesn’t make a difference to me. I know it’ll be in Texas, and I sure don’t hanker to ever leave this state again. Might be I’m still only fifteen, but it doesn’t seem like that matters, not any more. Jeb says I’ve proved myself as a man to ride the river with, and that’s good enough for me. Mebbe we’ll be sent…”

     Nate drifted off. The next thing he heard was Hoot’s voice, as his partner and best friend kicked at the sole of his boot.

     “Hey, Nate, wake up, ya idjit,” Hoot shouted, using his nickname for his partner. “We’re gettin’ ready to pull out. Unless you wanna stay here with the road runners, cactus, dust devils, and rattlesnakes.”

     

The Flight of Lydia Grimm (Jo Harper No. 9)

by Richard Prosch

In 1979 I was 13 years old, and the Space Age was still all around. The launch of America’s new space shuttle was imminent, and my dad and his friends were excited about the coming of home computers and video tape machines.

My grandpa’s Aunt Rose shared my enthusiasm. When she was 13—in the same year as Jo Harper—the 20th century was just beginning, and technology was beginning to make serious changes to everyday life in the West.

While the German immigrant grown-ups in Nebraska embraced steam powered tractors, then gasoline engines, telephones, electricity and wireless telegraphy, Rose let her imagination soar into the future.

When I was 13, I sat at her table sipping instant coffee and listened to her stories.

She talked about moving pictures projected onto bed sheet view screens in the back of the old mercantile store.

The thrill when she first saw an airplane move through the sky above the Nebraska prairie. 

The excitement of listening to music in her farm kitchen—music pulled straight out of the air.

These stories have stayed with me.

And haunted me for the past couple years.

I always hoped there would be another story for the series that began with Waiting for a Comet.

The first four, gathered together in Finding the Sky, capture Jo’s enthusiasm for the wonders of the nature. The following collection, On Solid Ground, are crime and mystery stories—almost like a young Nancy Drew on the range.

The Flight of Lydia Grimm picks up on that enthusiastic sense of life that is so much a part of Jo and leads off a series of four that combines the qualities of the first two.

This time, influenced by Aunt Rose, Jo’s engaged with man-made wonders even as she thwarts the crime or solves the mystery.

I hope you’ll join Jo, Frog, Abby Drake, and their friends and foes alike as they rush to embrace the future, first in The Flight of Lydia Grimm (now available) and coming soon, Last Wytch Park.

After growing up on a Nebraska farm, Richard Prosch worked as a professional writer, artist, and teacher in Wyoming, South Carolina, and Missouri. His western crime fiction captures the fleeting history and lonely frontier stories of his youth where characters aren’t always what they seem, and the windburned landscapes are filled with swift, deadly danger. In 2016, Richard roped the Spur Award for short fiction given by Western Writers of America. Read more at www.RichardProsch.com

New Release -- THE FLIGHT OF LYDIA GRIMM by Richard Prosch

Jo Harper Book 9

Jo Harper and her sidekick, Frog Beemer, are on their way to the movie in small-town Willowby, Wyoming. Beautiful Hollywood heroine, high-flying Lydia Grimm, is Jo’s role model—and she’s sat through Lydia’s latest movie, Wings Aflame! countless times. The only thing that can stop Jo and Frog from sitting through it again is the real thing—wings aflame—right over their heads!

Fantasy becomes a flaming reality on the Wyoming range as a burning airplane falls from the sky, and Jo and Frog grab their horses and ride to the scene of the disaster to help.

But when Frog returns to Willowby for help, Jo is held at gunpoint by the German pilot who has survived the crash!

All bets are off when Jo learns that her captor is involved with the very star she idolizes—Lydia Grimm! Lydia’s in danger, but it’s up to Jo to figure out why—and she’s determined to get to the bottom of this deadly mystery.

Will Frog return with help in time to save Jo? Can Jo unravel the mystery she’s caught up in? With a madman on the loose, Jo has no choice but to join in THE FLIGHT OF LYDIA GRIMM…

EXCERPT:

     “I’d swear that was the sound of a gasoline engine,” said Frog. “Listen! There it is again.”

     “It is a gas engine, but it’s no car,” said Jo, grinning.

     She pointed to the sky.

     “An airplane!” said Frog.

     It was extremely rare to see an airplane in the clear sky above Willowby, but to see one at night, just after she’d been talking about flying, was an exciting change of pace from a typical weekend night. Jo watched the dimly lit shadow putter along the blue horizon. Jo couldn’t help but think how lucky she was to be growing up in such a time as this, when, after centuries of trying, people flew through the air like birds.

     And just like that, something that sounded like a loud firecracker went off above them and the airplane motor started to whine.

     “It’s coming down! The airplane is coming down,” said Jo, pointing at a spark of light falling out of the purple night toward the dark shadows of nearby Autograph Rock. “She’s on fire!”

     “She?”

     “Hurry! Grab a horse and let’s ride!”

GET THE ENTIRE JO HARPER COLLECTION! Books 1-4 are available in the FINDING THE SKY set, and ON SOLID GROUND contains books 5-8! You will want them all!

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New Release -- Sarah's Music by Stella Long with Jessica Pierson Illustrating

~ A children's tale of dreams, sharing with nature, and accomplishment from Choctaw storyteller Stella (Fichek) Long ~

Sarah wishes with all her heart that she could make beautiful music, but her voice won't carry a tune. Determined to play her songs, Sarah sets out in search of a way to make her dream come true.

On her journey, she receives a special gift that will finally make her music real ... but how? Can her friends in the forest help her unlock the secret, or will the music she dreams of stay trapped in her heart forever?

Stella Long's mountain path was one of beauty as she walked alone at the age of six, talking with her friends, the creatures of the wild in the Choctaw language. (Fichek is her Choctaw name; Estella is the English name she likes best.) The mountain was her playground. There were times when she'd forget to go home until the night musicians, the insects, began tuning their instruments.

Stella (Fichek) writes and tells children's stories, getting her ideas from the animals and birds as she sits for hours in the solitary quietness of the lakeside observing animal behavior. She weaves a part of her life into these stories combined with Choctaw songs and sounds of the flute.

Available in Trade Paperback