In The Big Fifty, another name for the famous Sharps rifle, reality of frontier life becomes brutally clear to twelve-year-old Coady McIlvain. He falls in with a buffalo sharpshooter, and the two must survive the unforgiving terrain and hostile enemies.

Told in their separate voices, Gavin, a loner outcast, and Delilah, back in small-town Kansas after years at a Massachusetts boarding school, reconnect their senior year, but as their relationship deepens, it is clear that the eerie house Gavin dwells inwill do anything to keep the two apart.

A summer getaway in Montana for Dave Robicheaux's family and friends is violently shattered by the arrival of serial killer and prison escapee Asa Surrette.

"For many children, the summer of 1988 was filled with sunshine and laughter. But for ten-year-old Kris Barlow, it was her chance to say goodbye to her dying mother. Three decades later, loss returns--her husband killed in a car accident. And so, Kris goes home to the place where she first knew pain--to that summer house overlooking the crystal waters of Lost Lake. It's there that Kris and her eight-year-old daughter will make a stand against grief....

Big Jake Motley had been running the Big M spread in Texas for over 30 years. In that time, he's driven thousands of head of cattle to market in Kansas. Now, while both the Nineteenth century and the era of trail drive are coming to an end, Big Jake is determined to make one last drive to Kansas. The only thing is, he doesn't have the cowhands to move that much beef. He drafts his old friend, Chance McCandles, into service, and together, the two aging...

After years of waiting for her fiancé, Geoffrey Garrett, to send for her, England-born Emmaline Bradford arrives at Geoffrey's Kansas sheep ranch, where the shocking conditions there lead her to make a compromise with Geoffrey to stay until spring.

"Sarah, Plain and Tall:" A mail-order bride from Maine travels to Kansas in 1910 to join a widower, Jacob Witting, and his two children. "Skylark:" The Witting family is tested first by drought and then by separation, as Sarah and the children are forced to leave their Kansas farm to join Sarah's aunts in Maine while Jacob remains behind to try to save their livelihood. "Sarah Plain and Tall: Winter's End:" Having abandoned his family decades ago,...