Fourth Of July Creek

In this shattering and iconic American novel, PEN prize-winning writer, Smith Henderson explores the complexities of freedom, community, grace, suspicion and anarchy, brilliantly depicting our nation's disquieting and violent contradictions. After trying to help Benjamin Pearl, an undernourished, nearly feral eleven-year-old boy living in the Montana wilderness, social worker Pete Snow comes face to face with the boy's profoundly disturbed father, Jeremiah. With courage and caution, Pete slowly earns a measure of trust from this paranoid survivalist itching for a final conflict that will signal the coming End Times. But as Pete's own family spins out of control, Pearl's activities spark the full-blown interest of the F.B.I., putting Pete at the center of a massive manhunt from which no one will emerge unscathed.

"A thriller about a Black society with a secret"--

The portrait of a time and a place -Montana in the 1930's -- is depicted through the McCaskill family's personal struggles.

Young Jesse and his family are with a wagon train traveling from Indiana to Oregon when they stop to celebrate the Fourth of July, but Jesse is too young to go hunting with the men so he comes up with his own contribution to the festivities.

Oklahoma teen Neal Barton stands up for his favorite fantasy series, The Chronicles of Apathea Ravenchilde, when conservative Christians try to bully the town of Americus into banning it from the public library.

In this wonderful work of fiction, Joe Henry explores the complex relationship between a father and his sons, whose deep connections to one another, to the land, and to the creatures that inhabit it give meaning to their lives. Spencer Davis, his wife, Elizabeth, and their sons, Luke, Whitney, and Lonny, work with horses and with their hands. They spend long relentless days cutting summer hay and feeding it to their cattle through fierce Wyoming winters. The family bears witness to the cycle of life, bringing foals into the world and deciding when to let a favored mare pass on to the next. As Luke grows older, falls in love, and begins to assert his independence, Spencer strives to impart the wisdom of this way of life to his headstrong son, whatever the cost. Moving, powerful, and beautifully rendered, Lime Creek brings readers into the lives of this unforgettable family and into a world that, though often harsh, is lit by flashes of spectacular grace.

A troubled girl and a damaged horse find each other, and against all odds — mistaken identity, abandonment, corruption, and fraud — make an unbeatable team. His name is Sundancer, and from the moment he arrives at Saddle Creek Farm, Bird is fascinated by him. The horse is suspicious and guarded, touchy, and even cruel. Bird’s Aunt Hannah calls him “unrideable,” and Bird has to admit that Sundancer might be trouble. But Bird, whose mother left her to be raised by her aunt halfway across the country, is a bit of trouble herself. How else would you describe a girl who hasn’t spoken since she was six, and hears things no one else can hear — like the thoughts of the animals she befriends? Sundancer is a wounded horse with a story he’s not ready to share. Bird starts to feel like, maybe, they aren’t so different, and maybe she needs him as much as he needs her. Will she be able to reach him before it’s too late?

Vivian Gibson's bestselling memoir of growing up in the 1950s in a segregated St. Louis neighborhood has been hailed by critics as "a spare, elegant jewel of a work" and "a love letter to Gibson's childhood."

In a place called thunder creek, two wary hearts are about to get a second chance at love. When Katy Templeton fled her small Wyoming town and its painful memories, she thought she’d said good-bye to Thunder Creek forever. But now the prodigal daughter has come home. Home to the relentless ghosts of the past. Home to Jackson Brent, the lean, hard cowboy with the lazy smile--and the last person on earth she ever wanted to lay eyes on again. Time and tragedy had come between them, but Jackson never forgot his best friend’s kid sister. The coltish beauty blossomed into a stunning woman, burned by love yet unafraid to take on the whole town to get justice for her family. Katy blames him for her beloved brother’s death, but as she digs for answers about that fateful day fourteen years earlier, there is someone ready to kill to keep her from getting them--and Jackson might be the only one who can save her. He wants her safe--and in his arms, but Katy can’t rest until she discovers the truth. Fighting her red-hot attraction to Jackson, Katy risks everything--even the yearnings of her own heart--to unravel the truth about her brother’s death.

For readers of My Absolute Darling and Fourth of July Creek, a "riveting and timely" Montana story about the unbreakable bond between a young man and the abandoned boy put in his care (Jess Walter), as old grievances of land and blood are visited upon them. Wendell Newman, a young ranch hand in Montana, has recently lost his mother, leaving him an orphan. His bank account holds less than a hundred dollars, and he owes back taxes on what remains of the land his parents owned, as well as money for the surgeries that failed to save his mother's life. An unexpected deliverance arrives in the form of seven-year-old Rowdy Burns, the mute and traumatized son of Wendell's incarcerated cousin. When Rowdy is put under his care, what begins as an ordeal for Wendell turns into a powerful bond, as he comes to love the boy more than he ever thought possible. That bond will be stretched to the breaking point during the first legal wolf hunt in Montana in more than thirty years, when a murder ignites a desperate chase. Caught on the wrong side of a disaffected fringe group, Wendell is determined both to protect Rowdy and to avoid the same violent fate that claimed his own father. A gripping story set in a fractured and misunderstood community, Fall Back Down When I Die is a haunting and unforgettable tale of sacrificial love. Finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize