Western

by John Clayton Hale

Jasmine and her brothers are on a quest to their promised land to escape poverty and an abusive father. They are young and naïve to the sentiment of how some people feel for them in their new adopted country of the United States. They find out when Jasmine is sexually assaulted by the truck driver who smuggled them across the border. The young Mexicans make it to their promised land, but not without wounds and scars. Their first meal on American soil is at a truck stop where they meet Hugh and Patsy Lohan, dairy farmers from a small Texas town. The Lohan’s take them in and give them work and a home. Jasmine finds out she’s pregnant and her brothers meet Johnny and Frankie, two hired hands on the farm who hate Mexicans. What happens is a roller coaster of emotions and sacrifice. 'Jasmine’s Rosary Beads' is a timely story of good and evil. It is not an immigration story; it is an American story.

by J.J. Johnson

The Blood of My Blood Series is a three-tiered botanical Gothic memoir tracing generations of an inheritance blanketed in shadows filled with sorrow across shifting prairies and vast peaks. Between blood-soaked Oklahoman clay and the golden fields of Nebraska, come with me to unlock my mother's green trunk—examining the fragments of my family's trauma and secrecy, while discovering the maternal sacrifice that flows through my bloodline like silent, deadly currents.

by C. L. Night

Eugene Pull is your normal bull riding, teenage boy who works on his family's farm in the small rural town of Satin, Texas. His dreams are shattered, when he discovers his mother is losing the farm. Desperate to qualify for a state program, he turns in his blood sample to a lab to prove his ancestry. Once this happens, secrets are revealed that lead to a state wide government chase with an odd Native American named Silas Crow. This longer short story is filled with adventure, revelations and a deed clause that may change everything.

by Mary Ellen Johnson

When disgraced social media influencer Maeve Mooney—whose greatest ambition is to marry money so she never has to work again—tumbles down an abandoned mine shaft that her daft Irish grandmother insisted was “magical,” she is transported to 1901 Cripple Creek. Thanks to the discovery of  rich veins of gold in what was previously a remote cow pasture, Cripple Creek has become Colorado's fourth largest city.  The District is home to overnight millionaires, ambitious entrepreneurs and hardworking miners who, thanks to the Western Federation of Miners, have created a prosperous life for themselves and their families. Maeve soon finds employment as a piano player, entertaining wealthy businessmen with songs such as “Rocky Mountain High” (which  won’t be written for decades), and ordinary workers at the Pick-Axe saloon, owned by charismatic union leader Ronan Doyle. Maeve is initially determined to stay neutral amidst rising tensions between miners and mine owners, but after she and Ronan become lovers, she champions the union cause. She believes as passionately as Ronan in the WFM slogan: **Labor produces all wealth. Wealth belongs to the producers thereof.** After a strike is called in Cripple Creek and across the state, Maeve works tirelessly on behalf of the strikers and their families. But Maeve knows how the Colorado Labor Wars will end. How could she not? She was raised on stories of the strike, and of the courage of her great-great grandfather, who almost single-handedly stood up to the mine owners and their stooges. (Another lie, which she soon discovers.) History books tell the actual tale.   The Wars end in disaster. The WFM will be eradicated; the miners and their families arrested, imprisoned and banned forever from the District. Cripple Creek itself will never recover.  And what will happen to Ronan Doyle? Maeve has a choice. Remain in 1904 Cripple Creek to witness the annihilation of her and Ronan’s dream--and possibly his death? Or return to the 21st century and a life without even the possibility of her beloved?

by Michel Gerren

A secret military experiment has escaped—and an unsuspecting community is about to become ground zero. Genetically engineered cybernetic insects, created through a dangerous fusion of nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, and biological warfare, have been unleashed on the population. But these aren't ordinary bugs. **They communicate. They adapt. They learn.** As the swarm grows more intelligent and increasingly difficult to destroy, a group of unlikely survivors is pulled into a conspiracy surrounding the mysterious **Dr. Fabian Gilden** and the people responsible for creating the creatures. What begins as a fight for survival becomes a race to stop a weapon that is rapidly evolving beyond its original programming. Darkly funny, frightening, and action-packed, **BUG SMOKE** is a science-fiction thriller about humanity's obsession with creating the ultimate weapon—and what happens when that weapon decides **it no longer needs humanity.**

by Lola Blackwell

After being robbed by the caravan meant to guide him across the vast desert, an affluent man is left to die beneath an indifferent sun. As starvation, dehydration, and isolation erode his body, his mind begins to fracture alongside it. To survive the unbearable agony, he recounts the life he left behind: a refined home, a kind wife, and a brilliant but cruel son whose arrogance he believes he cultivated through years of emotional distance. The desert strips him apart piece by piece. Hallucinations blur the boundaries between memory and imagination. He agonizes over the man he should have been and for the son he believes he destroyed. Part survival story, part psychological horror, and part tragedy, this story follows a dying man whose journey across the unforgiving desert becomes a devastating confrontation with memory, guilt, and identity. Exploring the way shame reshapes memory, the stories we tell ourselves to survive our own failures, and whether redemption remains possible once every illusion has been stripped away.

by Lisa Uptain

Casey Oakley never asked for a hard life, but it found her anyway. Growing up under the watchful eyes of her brothers, Casey was always protected, always guarded. But even they could not shield her from the darkness that followed her. One night changes everything, leaving her broken in ways no one can see and forcing her to carry secrets that threaten to destroy her from the inside out. As she struggles to survive the aftermath of violence, addiction, and fear, Casey is caught between the life she is expected to live and the one she is desperate to escape. Every choice she makes pulls her deeper into a world filled with danger, pain, and people who want to control her. But Casey is not as weak as the world believes. With the help of those who refuse to give up on her, she begins a long and painful fight to reclaim her life. Trust does not come easy. Love feels impossible. And the past is never as far behind her as she hopes. In a world where survival is never guaranteed, Casey must decide who she is willing to become. Will she stay trapped in the life that nearly destroyed her, or will she find the strength to rise above it? Raw, emotional, and unflinching, *A Condemned Life* is a story of trauma, resilience, and the fight to take back control when everything has been stripped away.

by Lisa Uptain

Some people spend their lives running from the past. Casey Oakley has spent hers surviving it. One violent act shatters the life she thought she knew, setting her on a path filled with betrayal, heartbreak, impossible choices, and relentless danger. Every time she begins to rebuild, another enemy rises, determined to tear it all away. But Casey refuses to stay broken. Surrounded by the unwavering love of her brothers and the fierce loyalty of the friends who stand beside her, she discovers that true strength isn't measured by the battles you've lost, but by the courage to rise every time life knocks you down. From the dust of the rodeo arena to the fight for a future worth believing in, Casey's journey is one of resilience, sacrifice, justice, and hope. As old wounds reopen and new threats emerge, she must decide whether revenge is found in settling the score... or in refusing to let the darkness win. **The Revenge Series** is an unforgettable trilogy of survival, friendship, family, and the extraordinary strength of the human spirit. Filled with unforgettable characters, heart-pounding suspense, unforgettable romance, and hard-fought triumphs, this is the story of one woman who refuses to let anyone else write the ending to her life. **Some stories are about revenge.** **This one is about surviving long enough to earn it.**