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Golgotha
Series · 4 books · 2013-2020

Books in series

The Six-Gun Tarot book cover
#1

The Six-Gun Tarot

2013

Buffy meets Deadwood in a dark, wildly imaginative historical fantasy Nevada, 1869: Beyond the pitiless 40-Mile Desert lies Golgotha, a cattle town that hides more than its share of unnatural secrets. The sheriff bears the mark of the noose around his neck; some say he is a dead man whose time has not yet come. His half-human deputy is kin to coyotes. The mayor guards a hoard of mythical treasures. A banker’s wife belongs to a secret order of assassins. And a shady saloon owner, whose fingers are in everyone’s business, may know more about the town’s true origins than he’s letting on. A haven for the blessed and the damned, Golgotha has known many strange events, but nothing like the primordial darkness stirring in the abandoned silver mine overlooking the town. Bleeding midnight, an ancient evil is spilling into the world, and unless the sheriff and his posse can saddle up in time, Golgotha will have seen its last dawn…and so will all of Creation.
The Shotgun Arcana book cover
#2

The Shotgun Arcana

2014

R. S. Belcher’s debut novel, The Six-Gun Tarot, was enthusiastically greeted by critics and readers, who praised its wildly inventive mixture of dark fantasy, steampunk, and the Wild West. Now Belcher returns to Golgotha, Nevada, a bustling frontier town that hides more than its fair share of unnatural secrets. 1870. A haven for the blessed and the damned, including a fallen angel, a mad scientist, a pirate queen, and a deputy who is kin to coyotes, Golgotha has come through many nightmarish trials, but now an army of thirty-two outlaws, lunatics, serial killers, and cannibals are converging on the town, drawn by a grisly relic that dates back to the Donner Party…and the dawn of humanity. Sheriff Jon Highfather and his deputies already have their hands full dealing with train robbers, a mysterious series of brutal murders, and the usual outbreaks of weirdness. But with thirty-two of the most vicious killers on Earth riding into Golgotha in just a few day’s time, the town and its people will be tested as never before—and some of them will never be the same. The Shotgun Arcana is even more spectacularly ambitious and imaginative than The Six-Gun Tarot, and confirms R. S. Belcher’s status as a rising star.
The Queen of Swords book cover
#3

The Queen of Swords

2017

1720. Escaping the gallows, Anne Bonney, the infamous pirate queen, sets sail in search of a fabulous treasure said to be hiding in a lost city of bones somewhere in the heart of Africa. But what she finds is a destiny she never expected... 1870. Maude Stapleton is a respectable widow raising a daughter on her own. Few know, however, that Maude belongs to an ancient order of assassins, the Daughters of Lilith, and heir to the legacy of Anne Bonney, whose swashbuckling exploits blazed a trail that Maude must now follow—if she ever wants to see her kidnapped daughter again! Searching for her missing child, come hell or high water, Maude finds herself caught in the middle of a secret war between the Daughters of Lilith and their ancestral enemies, the monstrous Sons of Typhon, inhuman creatures spawned by primordial darkness, she embarks on a perilous voyage that will ultimately lead her to the long-lost secret of Anne Bonney—and the Father of All Monsters.
The Ghost Dance Judgement book cover
#4

The Ghost Dance Judgement

2020

NEVADA, 1872. Out of the merciless 40-Mile Desert, a stranger appears in the town of Golgotha, home to the blessed and the damned. He carries with him an innocent victim of a horrible massacre and a dire warning for Sheriff Jon Highfather. The conflict between the Indian nations and Mormon settlers has been brewing for years, and now the spirits of the fallen Indian dead have begun to rise to join in the fight. Deputy Mutt's old nemesis, Snake-Man, returns to begin a final bloody war against the Whites, purging them from the land forever. An insane U.S. General with his own genocidal agenda sees the coming conflict as a perfect solution to the “Indian problem,” and, as is often the case, the people of Golgotha find themselves caught in the middle. Mayor Harry Pratt's leadership of the town is challenged and he is threatened with the revelation of his greatest secrets, and with a betrayal that could utterly destroy him. The hungry, antediluvian terror imprisoned under the Argent Mine seeks release to devour the world through the most innocent of souls—Auggie Shultz and his wife, Gillian's, newborn. Not only is the fate of an innocent soul at stake, but the fate of all life. The Ghost Dance Judgement is the fourth book in the Golgotha series from R.S. Belcher, the author of The Brotherhood of the Wheel series and The Queen's Road.

Author

R.S. Belcher
R.S. Belcher
Author · 11 books

R.S. (Rod) Belcher is an award-winning newspaper and magazine editor and reporter. Rod has been a private investigator, a DJ, a comic book store owner and has degrees in criminal law, psychology and justice and risk administration, from Virginia Commonwealth University. He's done Masters work in Forensic Science at The George Washington University, and worked with the Occult Crime Taskforce for the Virginia General Assembly. He lives in Roanoke Virginia with his children: Jonathan and Emily .

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