Here are 13 books that Heck's Journey fans have personally recommended if you like
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I’ve loved both history and fantasy since I was a child. The first book I can remember reading at all was The Hobbit. The first historical novel I fell in love with was The Killer Angels. I visited the battlefield of Gettysburg with my family, and currently teach the movie every year to my high school film class. (I’ve never visited Middle Earth, but plan to visit New Zealand as soon as possible). I’ve been reading both genres ever since—and quite by accident my first novel contains a mix of both genres.
It purports to be historical fiction set in the Old West, following one of the last great cattle drives. Yet within a few chapters, it begins to feel like a series of episodes from Grimm’s fairy tales.
I remember at UC Irvine, where I earned my Fiction MFA, several fellow writers were reading this novel alongside me. We kept stopping each other in the hall or at cocktail parties to relive this or that chapter, struggling to understand how it could be both so entertaining and so good.
The fact that it is long—a real doorstopper of a book—adds to its “too-big-for-one-genre” feel.
Larry McMurtry's Pulitzer Prize winning novel is a powerful, triumphant portrayal of the American West as it really was. From Texas to Montana, it follows cowboys on a grueling cattle drive through the wilderness.
It begins in the office of The Hat Creek Cattle Company of the Rio Grande. It ends as a journey into the heart of every adventurer who ever lived . . .
More than a love story, more than an adventure, Lonesome Dove is an epic: a monumental novel which embraces the spirit of the last defiant wilderness of America.
The Victorian mansion, Evenmere, is the mechanism that runs the universe.
The lamps must be lit, or the stars die. The clocks must be wound, or Time ceases. The Balance between Order and Chaos must be preserved, or Existence crumbles.
Appointed the Steward of Evenmere, Carter Anderson must learn the…
As an author, I love telling stories set on the frontier and populated by pioneers. That has a lot to do with the books I read long ago. My characters tend to have their heads in the clouds, like Ken from Mary O’Hara’s My Friend Flicka. They dream of towering peaks, promising paths, and opportunities beyond the world they grew up in. Back in high school, I took an elective class—Historical Fiction—I wasn’t even sure what that was! We read The Source by James Michener. When I’m not hiking or dreaming about horses, there’s nothing I love more than making up wilderness stories set in the 1800s.
It’s hard to believe this classic is celebrating fifty years on television. And, of course, long before that, it was a treasure of a book that delighted generations of young people. The worst-kept secret is: you don’t outgrow this beloved author’s work.
It’s probably her fault that just thinking about covered wagons makes me long for the good old days—ones that came and went long before I was born. It’s not just the kind of book you want to read over and over again; it’s the kind of book you want to read aloud to others.
Classic tales by Laura Ingalls Wilder about life on the frontier and America's best-loved pioneer family.
The sun-kissed prairie stretches out around the Ingalls family, smiling its welcome after their long, hard journey across America. But looks can be deceiving and they soon find that they must share the land with wild bears and Indians. Will there be enough land for all of them?
The timeless stories that inspired a TV series can now be read by a new generation of children. Readers who loved Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, and Heidi will be swept up by this timeless…
As an author, I love telling stories set on the frontier and populated by pioneers. That has a lot to do with the books I read long ago. My characters tend to have their heads in the clouds, like Ken from Mary O’Hara’s My Friend Flicka. They dream of towering peaks, promising paths, and opportunities beyond the world they grew up in. Back in high school, I took an elective class—Historical Fiction—I wasn’t even sure what that was! We read The Source by James Michener. When I’m not hiking or dreaming about horses, there’s nothing I love more than making up wilderness stories set in the 1800s.
Many books tend to glorify traveling the Oregon Trail, but this book does not. Instead, it portrays the heartbreak of loss, the realism of a harsh migration, and the blossoming of an unexpected but tender romance.
The pages raced by, and it was hard to step away from this captivating novel. I highly recommend reading it.
In this epic and haunting love story set on the Oregon Trail, a family and their unlikely protector find their way through peril, uncertainty, and loss.
The Overland Trail, 1853: Naomi May never expected to be widowed at twenty. Eager to leave her grief behind, she sets off with her family for a life out West. On the trail, she forms an instant connection with John Lowry, a half-Pawnee man straddling two worlds and a stranger in both.
But life in a wagon train is fraught with hardship, fear, and death. Even as John and Naomi are drawn to each…
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
As an author, I love telling stories set on the frontier and populated by pioneers. That has a lot to do with the books I read long ago. My characters tend to have their heads in the clouds, like Ken from Mary O’Hara’s My Friend Flicka. They dream of towering peaks, promising paths, and opportunities beyond the world they grew up in. Back in high school, I took an elective class—Historical Fiction—I wasn’t even sure what that was! We read The Source by James Michener. When I’m not hiking or dreaming about horses, there’s nothing I love more than making up wilderness stories set in the 1800s.
This is the kind of book you get lost in. My favorite stories almost always include a trail—a journey. And the path followed by Lewis and Clark is, of course, more than just a journey.
I loved experiencing this excursion through the perspective of the heroic young mother. If it weren’t for her, the expedition would have been doomed. I’m long overdue for another read of this book, and I’m looking forward to diving back into it one of these days.
I've always had a passion for epic events in history, especially Texas history. I'm the fifth generation of my family born in Travis County, Texas. Both my parents were from early pioneer settlers. My great-grandmother Elnora Van Cleve was the first child born in Austin on April 14, 1841. When I first heard the family story of Elnora’s nine-year-old cousin Fayette, kidnapped by Comanche Indians on Shoal Creek, I knew the story must be told. I approached two well-known authors about writing the book. Both said, only I could write the story to my satisfaction. They were right and I wrote the award-winning Comanche Trace.
First published in 1939, The Old Santa Fe Trail was written under the pen name of Stanley Vestal by college professor Walter S. Campbell. The author was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. His book is a wealth of knowledge about the 200-year-old trading route from Missouri-Westport to Santa Fe, New Mexico. The author/professor turned a textbook subject into a readable and enjoyable story. The 900-mile route would become Route 66 around the time of Campbell’s death in 1957. His stories of those that used the trail; like William Becknell, Kit Carson, and Jim Bridger kept my attention. The 27-page appendix with index and bibliography was immensely helpful in my research for my book.
'What is distinctive in Vestal's account is the admirable reconstruction of the facts and feelings of the life of the trail. To read his book is to realize that life as vividly as if you had seen it in a movie...Obviously, he loves the Trail and knows it as well as one knows one's own sidewalk. His enthusiasm makes his knowledge infectious' - "New York Times". 'Anecdotal history at its best, history come to life...This is the way people lived along the trail' - "Christian Science Monitor".The Santa Fe Trail was one of the two great overland highways originating in…
I’ve long had a passion (read: obsession) with the apocalypse in whatever form it takes. I’ve written viral pandemics, zombie outbreaks, post-nuclear survival, dystopian totalitarianism, extinction-level-event, alien invasion, WW3… all of them have the theme of the great reset. The ability to reinvent yourself in the new world. The erasure of your life and the clean slate to try again and become who you want to be. I read and listen to this genre as well as write it because I'm passionate about the worlds writers create and the way their characters adapt to overcome the challenges my own have faced. As a former police officer, I’ve probably spent too many night shifts pondering the end of the world.
Keith gripped me with his Mountain Man series. If ever there was a reluctant hero who accidentally self-sabotages often, one who is so real and relatable that you can’t help but love him, then Keith’s Gus character is for you. Tackling the zombie apocalypse from the point of view of a regular, everyday man, this series grabs hold and doesn’t let go.
Boomstick.Samurai bat.Motorcycle leather.And the will to live amongst the unliving.Augustus Berry lives a day-to-day existence comprised of waking up, getting drunk, and preparing for the inevitable day when "they" will come up the side of his mountain and penetrate his fortress. Living on the outskirts of a city and scavenging for whatever supplies remain since the demise of civilization, Gus knows that his next visit to undead suburbia could be his last. Not only does he face a corpse-infested urban hell, human scavengers, and unending loneliness, but now a new mystery has risen...The undead are disappearing from the streets.A force…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
I’m the USA Today bestselling author of nineteen romances including the He Wanted Me Pregnant! series of short, steamy, standalone reads, several of which feature curvy heroines. I believe there’s room in romance for heroes and heroines of all shapes and sizes and I love to see curvy girls find their one-and-only: someone who loves them exactly the way they are. I like my curvy heroines to be smart, witty, and have depth and I like my romances to be just the right mix of squee-inducing instalove and steamy scenes.
Maybe it’s because I live in a city but I’m a sucker for outdoor settings both in my own books and in those I read. This book by Mia Brody pushes all the right buttons: we’ve got Crew, a prickly but good-hearted muscled lumberjack, and Maggie, a curvy bride who’s running away from a polite-language-can’t-describe-how-horrible-he-is groom. Fortunately, as she hightails it away from the arranged marriage from hell, she spins off the road and winds up stuck in a cabin with Crew in the middle of a snowstorm. It’s sweet, it’s steamy, it moves fast and it’s just the perfect read to snuggle up with when the wind’s howling outside.
I’m a retired English prof with a lifelong interest in history. My father fostered my fascination with Civil War battlefields, and growing up in Florida, I studied the Seminole wars in school and later at FSU. While teaching at the University of Idaho (nearly 50 years), I pursued my interest in the Indian wars of the mid-19th century and developed a curiosity about tribes in the inland Northwest, notably the Coeur d’Alene, Spokane, and Nez Perce. My critical biography of Blackfeet novelist James Welch occasioned reading and research on the Plains tribes. I recommend his nonfiction book,Killing Custer: The Battle of Little Bighorn and the Fate the Plains Indians.
As a boy, I encountered Kit Carson via the Landmark Books, and I could not resist rediscovering him in juxtaposition with his friend but non-kindred spirit, John C. Frémont, who nearly became president in 1856. Although Roberts mercifully spares us from exposing Frémont’s Civil War blunders, his account of the disastrous 1848-49 expedition renders the “Pathfinder” in his grandiosity a less sympathetic figure than the laconic scout. As Roberts notes in his epilogue concerning the feats of his two flawed subjects, “pure heroes or villains do not exist outside the pages of bad literature.” He likens the evolution of Carson as “thoughtless killer of Apaches and Blackfeet” to “defender and champion of the Utes” to a similar reversal in the case of General George Crook.
In A Newer World, David Roberts serves as a guide through John C. Frémont's and Kit Carson's adventures through unknown American territory to achieve manifest destiny.
Between 1842 and 1854 John C. Frémont, renowned as the nineteenth century's greatest explorer, and Kit Carson, the legendary scout and Indian fighter, boldly ventured into untamed territory to fulfill America's "manifest destiny." Drawing on little-known primary sources, as well as his own travels through the lands Frémont and Carson explored, David Roberts recreates their expeditions, second in significance only to those of Lewis and Clark. A Newer World is a harrowing narrative of…
As a college instructor and a student of Western American Literature for many, many years I have read a great number of western novels for my classes and for my literary studies. In addition to my doctoral dissertation on the topic, I have written and published numerous articles and reviews on western writers, and I have given many public presentations as well. I have a long-standing interest in what makes good works good. As a fiction writer, I have published more than thirty traditional western novels with major publishers, and have won several national awards for my western novels and short stories.
The Big Sky is a masterpiece of historical fiction and an often-cited classic novel of the American West. It earns this distinction because of its original characterization, its use of historical and geographical accuracy, its thematic depth, and its symbolism. It is set in the mountain man or fur trade era, and it shows the consequences of White men going into the wilderness. This book introduces the idea, in cultural and environmental terms, that in the occupation of the American West, people ruin the thing they love. This book not only makes it to the top of the lists by western writers, but it also is well appreciated by scholars and students in Western American Literature.
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I’m the USA Today bestselling author of nineteen romances including the He Wanted Me Pregnant! series of short, steamy, standalone reads, several of which feature curvy heroines. I believe there’s room in romance for heroes and heroines of all shapes and sizes and I love to see curvy girls find their one-and-only: someone who loves them exactly the way they are. I like my curvy heroines to be smart, witty, and have depth and I like my romances to be just the right mix of squee-inducing instalove and steamy scenes.
Okay, I admit it, I may have picked this one up because I was curious, as a romance author, to read a romance abouta romance author. Fern Fraser totally delivers and although we have some tried-and-tested tropes here (instalove, young heroine who wants to get her v-card punched, secret billionaire who hides his wealth, then has to come clean), Fern assembles all the ingredients into such a delicious, feel-good pie that it feels fresh. There’s a whole series if you find you like them, but each one stands on its own as a fun, steamy read.
♥ A dare, a lie and a vacation fling that just might lead to a forever kind of love ♥
Emmy
I might be young and idealistic, but I set goals in life. One of which–being a successful romance author–I’m already living. While at a writer’s retreat with my besties, I drink too much Champagne and let my secret slip. I may write about dirty things but have no real life experience. My friend suggests a solution and the smoking hot mountain resort groundskeeper seems like the perfect candidate to help solve my ‘V-card ‘problem.’
