The Indians called it Kan-Ta-Ke ("Beautiful Meadow") but to the pioneers who made their way to Kentucky over the Wilderness Road in the 1770's it was "The Dark and Bloody Ground" where American patriots still fought for their lives against redcoats and their savage allies thirteen years after the British surrender. Among these brave venturers were: JOE FLOYD: At twenty, a giant of a man, fleeing the terrible consequences of his own strength, searching for a new life and love... TWO-HEARTS: A "white Indian," captive of the Shawnee since childhood, torn between two worlds, honor-bound to war against the man she loves... MARGARET FLOYD: Gallant and beautiful, she fought side-by-side with her men against the wilderness - living in terror of the forbidden passion that raged within... WO-KAN: Treacherous sub-chief of the Shawnee, sworn to have Two-Hearts in his tent - and Joe Floyd's scalp on his belt...

The first men and women to reach the rugged mountains of the American West came in the early 1800's—a handful of trappers, fur traders and mountain men. This novel tells the story of some of them—of Maria de Vizes, fearless young beauty who survived ravishment and torture to become the first woman trader on that wild frontier—of the handsome Kruger brothers, locked in a life-and-death struggle for possession of Maria—of reckless young Barry Fitzpatrick, nephew of the legendary "Broken Hand" Fitzpatrick, who risks everything at the savage battle of Pierre's Hole to save Maria from the Indians, led by the white renegade to whom she is the supreme prize.

It was the largest wagon train ever to leave Independence, and it was in trouble before it had traveled ten miles Westward. The chief scout chosen to guide the train was an inexperienced stripling and the leader was a food. Among the diverse people aboard the Conestoga wagons were: the cold-blooded murderer, a 14-year-old wanton, an aristocratic lady with a stolen treasure, a mulatto with a secret white lover - and one wily and powerful man who had sworn the wagons would never get through. In this novel, recreating the drama of the great Westward trek, we meet historic figures such as John C. Fremont, the fame explorer, his wife and beautiful wife Jessie Benton Fremont, and Jim Bridger, the legendary frontiersman. In vivid detail, we experience the saga of a turbulent journey toward a rendezvous with destiny.

GOLD FEVER! In the days of 1849, when gold was struck at Sutter's Mill near Sacramento City, a kind of madness raged across America. Sober bankers from Boston left wives and children and took passage West...Sailors in San Francisco harbor jumped ship and took up pick and shovel...Emigrant scholars pulled on boots and headed for the Mother Lode, a one-mile-wide, one-hundred-and-twenty-mile-long strip of quartz crystals in which fortunes in gold lay hidden. Among the swarming multitudes were the bankrupt Lady Pamela Buttle-Jones, her beautiful wanton daughter, Selena, the starving young prospector, Danny O'Lee, the footloose frontiersman, Berry Fitzpatrick and the enigmatic gambler, King Sutton. Thrown together, their private passions rise with the consuming fury of Gold Fever.

HEARTS DIVIDED Arriving in St. Louis to search for his missing brother, Danny O'Lee meets a lovely but mysterious young girl named Liberty Wells who has known his brother and perhaps been his lover before they were parted by the bitter slavery question. Danny is led to Quantrill and his guerrillas, among them Frank and Jesse James, who are ravaging anti-slavery Kansas. Next, he meets and is converted to the Union cause by a beautiful black abolitionist. Finally, after many hairbreadth adventures, Danny O'Lee finds his beloved brother-fighting on the other side-at the bloody Battle of Shiloh, a turning point in the little-known Civil War in the West. There, a hero is born, a villain is unmasked and a love is renewed, while the Union finds a general in an obscure, cigar-smoking, whisky-drinking sphinx of a man named U.S. Grant.

The Mystery Woman in the Great Railroad War... Passions ran high in the 1860s as men and women struggled, sweated, fought and often died in the race to build the great transcontinental railroad. Eastern money, Eastern muscle and Eastern logrolling was winning the race - aided by a ruthless killer hired as a "consultant." Meanwhile, those building from the Western end of the country - the "Big Four," Huntington, Stanford, Crocker and Hopkins - were bogged down in private feuds, labor strife and sabotage, until a mystery woman named Liberty Lee and her even more mysterious "friend" took a hand in the deadly race to the Golden Spike.

JESSE AND FRANK JAMES, BILL HICKOCK, THE DOOLIN GANG, - AND A LOVELY MYSTERY WOMAN NAMED ROSE OF THE CIMARRON WHO RODE UNKNOWN THROUGH THE DAYS AND NIGHTS OF THE WILD AND THE WAYWARD This is the saga of the last days of the wild, wild West. It was, in a true sense, the last frontier, where the mavericks, dark trail riders and gunfighters made their last stand against the oncoming forces of civilization, represented by relentless men such as Marshal Bill Tilghman, who broke the outlaw power and drove gangs such as the Doolins - along with Rose of the Cimarron - far out into the Western badlands where they made their final stand.

They came to conquer the vast, open spaces, to brand their rough-hewn honor on a hard and lawless land. Jason Briscoe, Custer's Comanche scout, drove his longhorns north on the dangerous trail to Abilene, determined to forge an empire and a dynasty to bear his name... Print Varner, soldier-cowboy, seized opportunity with bloody hands: other men's horses, cattle, wives were his for the taking. What he couldn't steal, he'd destroy... Tamar Swanson, the woman they both wanted, the brazen beauty torn between pride, passion and the stake that was hers alone... From wild Indian country to the dusty cattle trails, from the Civil War to the battle for a savage new frontier, they wrote a legend in blood and passion...the legend that gave Texas its glory and its fame. For this volume, "Lee Davis Willoughby" is actually author John Toombs.

Baroness of the Klondike - as cruel and as beautiful as the frozen landscape she'd sworn to rule by fair means or foul America's purchase of Alaska from Russia, called "Seward's Folly" after the Secretary of State who masterminded the negotiations, drew a raging army of speculators, thieves, dreamers, prostitutes and gamblers, when word came of a gold strike in the Klondike. Among them was the tall, muscular young man who gave his name as Bryan Mathews, whom the Eskimo women called "the Man-God." Baroness Irina Feodorovna and her equally spectacular daughter, Milla, wanted Mathews for entirely different reasons. Milla saw him as the love of her life. Irina saw him as a key - not only to unlock the pent-up passions of her magnificent body, but as a key through which she could control and rule the secret riches of this frozen kingdom called Alaska. For this volume, "Lee Davis Willoughby" is actually author Barry Myers.

Before the gunsmoke of the Civil War had settled, when the Government threw open vast wilderness lands for homesteading, a small cabal of powerful and selfish men saw a way to riches beyond avarice. By trickery, violence and sometimes murder, they would steal the priceless resources of America from the very men who had fought to make the land free. Lord of these landgrabbers was the master schemer, Windham, Earl of Dunraven. Only his beautiful cousin, Dorothy, stood in his path. And he'd found the perfect means to eliminate this fearless lady: a devil's bargain with the mysterious man whom Dorothy loved beyond all reason.

Parker was a man dogged by a secret out of his past, left to protect the vast range of a dead cattle baron - almost singlehandedly... Goodpasture, hard-edged and handsome - already ruler of the biggest cattle empire in Wyoming, he hungered for the land - and person - of Leslie Kendrake, high-born English beauty, whose innocence hid a blazing spirit that would ignite passions as large as the land. For this volume, "Lee Davis Willoughby" is actually author Robert Vaughan.

On a journey West following the Civil War Birdwell Jacobs gallantly fights Indians and meets and falls in love with the beautiful Jody Robb

Fierce and reckless men, Proud and passionate women—These were The Boomers In the year 1853, in primal Washington Territory, two pioneer logging camps were carved out of the remote and trackless wilderness. There, men and women alike were caught up in a struggle of titans... RANDALL: a big man who dreamed big dreams, while haunted by a dark secret from his Boston past... YORK: driven by demonic inner fires, and a lust to build an empire by fair means or foul... BERYL: a blonde temptress with a will of iron, and one all-consuming passion... MELANIE: destiny's daughter—in her veins mingled the blood of savages and kings...

On their journey into destiny there were heroes, heroines—and breakers of the last taboo...From the moment in 1846 when the Donner-Reed wagon train set out from Springfield, Illinois, the men, women and children of the party suffered from a plague of bad luck. There was illness, inept leadership and bitter feuding.By the time they reached a certain storm-battered mountain pass in the high Sierras, all the ingredients of horrifying tragedy were in place. There were heroes, such as the patriarch, George Donner, and the bold young mountainman, thornbird. There were heroines, such as tiny, spirited Tamsen Donner and the bewitching Liza Williams. But there was also among them a madman, a murderer—and those accursed ones who, when disaster, starvation and death struck, would break the last human taboo.

In 1803, the Louisiana Territory was in a turmoil. Spain was ceding this territory back to the France because the United States had offered to let them keep Florida. So the French flag was once again being raised to the joy of the Creoles. But Tanguay La Branche knew the joy would be brief since he was aware this was only part of a deal where President Jefferson would now buy the Louisiana Territory from France. Once they belonged to the United States what would become of the Creoles? Previously published as "The Creoles"

1860: The Pony Express ran on the sweat and blood of headstrong young trailblazers. Fighting hostile Indian and greedy White Man alike, the Express Riders forged a perilous trail as they carried the U.S. Mail through the untamed wilderness from Missouri to California. Morgan Bunker, a daring young rider for the Pony Express, fought for his life and soul to resist the seductive and determined Widow McPhee, owner of the rival Ace Freighters. In her quest for money and power, the scheming temptress first plotted Morgan's death, and later committed an unspeakable sin—in a ruthless plot to sabotage the Pony Express and steal away the coveted U.S. Mail contract. As this bitter rivalry raged to a peak, two brothers riding for enemy freight companies were torn apart by conflicting loyalties, and found themselves locked in a no-holds-barred fight for power, glory and the ultimate prize—the love of a passionate young beauty.

THE PASSION, THE PROMISE—AND THE PERIL Lovely spirited Beth Lowell scorned New York high society when in 1846, she jilted a fabulously wealthy bachelor in favor of one Michael Porter, a charming adventurer bound for the wilderness of California. Defying the will of her family, the blonde beauty with the flashing, green eyes joined the man she loved on his trek to the Far West. The journey held both pleasure and sorrow for Beth. There was the joy of motherhood, but also great personal loss. In Antelope Valley, Baja, she found her fate closely intertwined with that of Rancho Cielo and the part-Anglo, part Mexican Porter clan. There was the proud matriarch, Luz, whose authority was not to be questioned; there was the raven-haired temptress, Carmen, whose flery, sensuous beauty no man could resist; and there was Michael's mysterious half-brother, Joe Porter, with whom Beth was to become deeply involved. These and others, some good and some evil, would lead Beth Lowell to her rendezvous with a unique destiny: the discovery of a closely guarded, century-old secret that alone could keep Rancho Cielo in the hands of the proud Porter family.

Vintage paperback

Light curl on top front cover. Top edge has a small roller stamp and a penciled price on inside front page. Great copy, clean other than stated and tight. Ships very quickly and packaged carefully!

Mysteriously called home from abroad by his family, Clay Monroe begins work with Harvel Packer, a wealthy speculator, and eventually learns the truth about his family's past

Book by Lee Davis Willoughby

A rough-and-ready clan, they fought as they loved—passionately—to protect their people and their hard-won land.

After Billy the Kid and Mark Halloran rescue what’s left of the Nesbitt family from an Apache attack in the New Mexico Territory, the fate of the young daughter and the teen-age boy are sealed. Tessa’s attracted to Mark and Ezra suffers a severe cause of hero-worship over Billy, wanting to be just like him. Soon all of them are involved in the cruelest range war in the history of the West—the bloody Lincoln County war. How can Tessa protect her brother from trailing after Billy? And how can she be drawn to a man who is on the opposite side of this range war? Note: Lee Davis Willoughby was a pseudonym used to write the American historical fiction multi-author series 'The Making of America'. Jane Toombs was one of several authors who wrote for the series under the pseud.