New Release The Saga of Indian Em’ly: (A Collection of 4 Books) by Sara Harris

Twelve-year-old Wind That Knocks Down Lodges loves his little sister, Cactus Flower, and the wildness of the desert canyonland the Apache call home. But in one night of misunderstanding and mistakes, Knocks Down and Cactus Flower’s innocent world is shaken as they find themselves locked in the nearby fort with the pale face soldiers and their mother’s lifeless body. With no one to lean on but each other, Knocks Down and Cactus Flower must make their way as children of The People in the pale face world—pale faces who have now become the enemy.

After finding themselves at the mercy of the Army, far from Apache Territory and well on the trail to Colorado, Knocks Down must bring himself to trust the soldier, Pale Face Joe. But Joe disappears, and when ordered to dispose of the children or else, the other Army soldiers waste no time in depositing them at the nearest Catholic orphanage.

They manage to escape the evil orphanage along with a new pale face friend, Kid McCoy. But they are set upon by a gang of murdering claim jumpers who steal Cactus. With Kid McCoy’s help, Knocks Down goes after her. When they encounter a soldier who was responsible for their mother’s death, they realize he’s set on seeing them dead, as well. How can a boy defeat a battle-hardened soldier? Just when Knocks Down is about to give up, the biggest surprise of all changes everything…

EXCERPT

     “I say again, halt! I have orders to shoot!”

     A woman’s voice answered. “Izdzaa, yiiltse! Pa-lease, please!”

     Cactus Flower and I exchanged a look. Peering through the mesquite branches, I saw my mother, our mother, her outstretched hands bathed in the moonlight as the cloud slid from over it. She was making the Apache sign for peace. Cactus flower saw her, too. Before I could raise my hand back to cover her mouth, the word tore from her lips in a shriek that echoed down through the canyon and back again. “Ma!”

     “Sentry, fire!” came another voice, followed abruptly by two booms. Booms which echoed the very one that had taken the life of Silver Sky, my father, so many winters ago.

      

New Release - Colt Buchanan and the Dastardly Desert Devils by Jack Bates - #paintedponybooks @prairierosepubs

Colt Buchanan’s life changes in a matter of minutes when his mother and father are ripped away from him during a surprise dust storm that leaves their Wyoming cabin in nothing but splinters. It’s a moment they’ve prepared for all his life, but at ten years old, he’s not sure what comes next. When he climbs from the cellar, he realizes that this was no ordinary dust storm. The devastation was done by something more powerful…more sinister. Something man-made.

But Colt is rescued before any further harm can come to him by Captain Conrad Givens who pilots an amazing invention that flies in the air. Givens takes Colt to the safety of Fort Discovery, a place where Colt learns how important his parents’ scientific work has been—and that he’s not alone. There are many other brilliant children there, as well—children whose parents had extraordinary scientific skills just like Colt’s parents did. And someone is making orphans of them all. 

When danger threatens Fort Discovery, there’s only one choice Colt can make. He has to do whatever it takes to protect the enlightened community that exists there—teachers, scientists, and students alike. But how can he defeat the formidable enemy, Anvil Smith? With the help of his friends and Pecos Bill, Colt realizes he’s more than “just a kid”—and saving Fort Discovery is the only way to find out where his parents are!

EXCERPT

     “Pa! You got it!”

     In that same instant, lightning sparked down along the copper shaft of the spyglass. Colt felt all of its power race through his body. The house shook as sand exploded through the walls.

     “Jenny! Take Colt into the cellar!”

     Colt covered his eyes with his arm to protect them from the sand. He briefly saw his mother lift off the ground.

     The next instant, Colt was toppling down into the cellar. Colt looked up at the swirling, sandy world overhead. His father’s hand reached out above him. Colt sprang up reaching for the hand that disappeared as quickly as it appeared. Colt’s world went black as the heavy metal door swung shut. Small traces of dust seeped through the door frame.

     When the dust settled, both Randall and Jenny Buchanan were gone.

     And they would remain that way for a very long time.

     

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

#NewRelease: The Saga of Indian Em'ly — 99-cent Boxed Set

Twelve-year-old Wind That Knocks Down Lodges loves his little sister, Cactus Flower, and the wildness of the desert canyonland the Apache call home. But in one night of misunderstanding and mistakes, Knocks Down and Cactus Flower’s innocent world is shaken as they find themselves locked in the nearby fort with the pale face soldiers and their mother’s lifeless body. With no one to lean on but each other, Knocks Down and Cactus Flower must make their way as children of The People in the pale face world—pale faces who have now become the enemy.

After finding themselves at the mercy of the Army, far from Apache Territory and well on the trail to Colorado, Knocks Down must bring himself to trust the soldier Pale Face Joe. But Joe disappears, and when ordered to dispose of the children or else, the other Army soldiers waste no time in depositing them at the nearest Catholic orphanage.

They manage to escape the evil orphanage along with a new pale face friend, Kid McCoy. But they are set upon by a gang of murdering claim jumpers who steal Cactus. With Kid McCoy’s help, Knocks Down goes after her. When they encounter a soldier who was responsible for their mother’s death, they realize he’s set on seeing them dead, as well. How can a boy defeat a battle-hardened soldier? Just when Knocks Down is about to give up, the biggest surprise of all changes everything…


The Saga of Indian Em'ly Books 1-4 is a tale of bold adventure Middle Grade readers won't be able to put down. At only 99 cents, it's a bargain.


Excerpt:

Something wasn’t right. The night animals ceased their songs in unison, and another troublesome cloud shrouded the moon. An icy shiver trickled down my backbone to the tune of silence. The happy drumming coming from the camp, telling the world of the birth of Red Lake’s firstborn son, had slowed to a stop. I froze, pulling Cactus Flower back onto her bottom. She rose from the hard-packed earth, her bottom lip puffed out and her inky eyebrows knitted together above her eyes. Before she could open her mouth to speak, a flock of beating wings sent me cowering, nose first, into the dirt beside her.

“Knocks Down, why did those birds –”

Instinctively, I slapped my hand over her mouth, taking care enough to be gentle. No sooner had she quieted, than another sound echoed through the solemn night air.

“Halt! Who goes there?”

I slipped my finger over my lips, wordlessly instructing Cactus Flower to remain silent. She nodded and I removed my hand from over her mouth.

Now Available

#NewRelease -- The Saga of Indian Em’ly Book 4: The Journey Home by Sara Barnard -- #Giveaway

BLURB
Twelve-year-old Knocks Down and his little sister, Cactus Flower, manage to escape the evil orphanage along with a new pale face friend, Kid McCoy. But once they escape, they are set upon by a gang of murdering claim jumpers who steal Cactus and leave Knocks Down for dead. 

Determined to find his little sister, Knocks Down gets to the nearest town where they’ve taken her, only to discover she has been sold as a slave! With Kid McCoy’s help, Knocks Down goes after her. Escaping once more, they encounter an old nemesis, a soldier from the nearby fort that was responsible for their mother’s death—and he’s set on seeing Knocks Down and Cactus Flower dead, as well. 

How can a boy defeat a battle-hardened soldier? Just when Knocks Down is about to give up, the biggest surprise of all changes everything on THE JOURNEY HOME…

EXCERPT
    The day passed quickly and in relative silence until Kid realized something. “Say Chief, where is it we’re headed, anyway?”
    I scanned the foreign horizon, an odd feeling suddenly gripping my backbone. “South,” I whispered, “back home, to the land of the Comanche.” Without thinking, I dropped to a crouch and let every sound fade away. Chirping birds, whistling wind, even the breath of Cactus and Kid. Every sound disappeared except the one that had pricked my ear and shot the rash of tingles in the first place. 
    “Something has happened nearby.” 
    Cactus slipped her hand into mine. “I hear it, too. Let’s go.”
    Kid scratched his head. “What’d I miss? I don’t hear nothin’.”

    By the time we arrived at what was left of the pale face camp, Kid heard it too. The dog’s whimpering had grown louder with each step, and more mournful. There hadn’t been but six people in camp, two of them children, and no survivors. The dog, a hulking black beast with pointed ears, low hips and a long tail, lay by the body of the girl. Whining, he licked her face and nuzzled her hands, as if trying to wake her from a deep sleep.

Buy Links    Barnes and Noble Nook      Smashwords        Kobo

Whitman Authorized TV Editions

by Richard Prosch

 

I can honestly report that without the genius of the Whitman Publishing Company's authorized editions, and specifically the TV tie-ins, there wouldn't be a Jo Harper series of stories.

As I wrote here and here, many of the Jo's adventures find their origins in the life of my grandpa's Aunt Rose, and my own great-grandma. But those stories wouldn't be in the short, fast-paced adventure format they are without the Whitman influence.

For the folks in Racine, it started in the '40s when the authorized editions broke new ground in presenting stories to young people. As harbingers for the media savvy publishers today, Whitman realized they could cash in on the popularity of radio and movie stars by leasing the rights to them and assigning new, original stories to experienced authors. Second, they were one of the first publishers to recognize the market potentialof properties aimed at a young female audience.

Both trends continued and by the 1960s, a new line of nearly 100 titles based on TV shows was underway. Stories from The Beverly Hillbillies, Bewitched, and The Mod Squad were available next to Annie Oakley, Gunsmoke, and Have Gun Will Travel.

The first western book I ever read was Annie Oakley in the Ghost Town Secret.  Originally belonging to my aunt, I remember it being on the shelf at my grandma's house for several years before I pulled it down and read it in an afternoon. 

I've collected quite a few of the westerns and read them as an adult. I'm happy to report that the books stand up well. In no small part, this is due to Racine's wisdom in signing top notch writers to the tie-in books. 

Many of the westerns were penned by proven scribes in the field: 

Cheyenne and the Lost Gold of Lion Park and Bonanza: Killer Lion, both by Steve Frazee.

Bonanza: Treachery Trail by Harry Whittington.

The Rebel by H.A. DeRosso

Roy Rogers and the Brasada Bandits by Cole Fanin. 

And many more.

These square bound hardbacks were ubiquitous and lmost any antique store in America will have a few copies available for reasonable prices. Along with those shows mentioned above, The Rifleman, Maverick, Rin-Tin-Tin, Tales of the Wells Fargo and Wagon Train also have fine entires.

For a fascinating look at the golden era of western television, licensing, and just plain good reads, give 'em a try! 

Meanwhile, I'll be giving away a copy of the latest Jo Harper adventure, Redbuds and Bullets to a commenter. Just leave a comment for me here or at Facebook (and please message me your email address).

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. Read more at www.RichardProsch.com