100 Books Like The Trail West

There is a "realness" and melancholic quality to this story that immediately drew me in because every element, even the more fantastical ones, felt immensely believable.

Set in the richly detailed and lived-in world of Osten Ard, this first volume in the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series by Williams took its time to get the main plot moving, but I want to stress just how much I found that to be a good thing. It truly afforded me an opportunity to get to know the setting and characters intimately, so that by the time the plot kicked into high gear, I was well and truly committed to caring about what happens.

Despite its hefty length, this was one of the fastest page-turners I’ve ever laid my eyes on.

Silent Fear is a stunning mystery novel, scary because it is set in an institute for the blind during a lockdown. There is a serial killer on the loose and no inmates have the ability to see their persecutor. Yes, this one gets right inside your mind and I felt privileged to read it.

This historical fiction is one of three novels set in London, the one featured is contemporary, and set upon the streets walked by Jack the Ripper. What I found compelling was the detailed presentation of the lives of ordinary, working-class women, that was gritty and most believable in presentation. The characters came alive and the story flowed; some working girls vanished, who would be next? This is not a story about Jack. It is a story about those nearby and affected by the beast.

Retired FBI profiler Terry McCaleb is recovering from a heart transplant he required after a heart attack he suffered while hunting a serial killer. When a woman urges him to help investigate the murder of her sister who was shot dead during a robbery, Terry discovers it is her heart he received. Possibly the killer wanted McCaleb to recover so he could resume his pursuit. This is one of the finest stories I have ever read; deeply moving, and a very exciting read.

Through the Waters and the Wild really impacted me because it asks the timeless and relatable questions—“Where shall I go now?” and “What shall I do?” Focused on questions we all ask at some point in life, this wonderfully crafted novel answers that question in a unique way. Moving through the time period of the Irish Civil War, Fields is able to tell the story of a young boy finding his way all the while creating a setting in which is almost unbelievably described. I love this book because it seems as if Fields truly used a time machine, and as the reader, I felt as if I was on the streets in Ireland seeing the story take place. 

Named one of the “Top 100 Civil War Books” by the Centennial Commission, this records the history of the most famous Union unit of the war. Nolan uses many first-person accounts to ensure accuracy; Service with The Sixth Wisconsin Volunteers being predominant. This book first inspired my interest in studying the Civil War, and sparked my special admiration for Rufus Dawes, eventually leading to the creation of my own book, To My Best Girl – Courage, Honor and Love in the Civil War: The Inspiring Life Stories of Rufus Dawes and Mary Gates.

One of the boys whose story I frequently share in my presentations is 12-year-old Gustave Shurmann. During the war, he had a fascinating experience, serving four different generals as a regimental bugler and spending time in the White House with Tad Lincoln. 

I thoroughly enjoyed how William Styple researched Gus’s life and then turned it into a novel through which young readers could live history with Gus through a great story. I appreciated sharing Gus’s life in both formats as I lived it with him while reading this book and researched it, including in Gus’s own words, through excerpts from his own writings.

Former Confederate Admiral Raphael Semmes, commander of infamous Rebel commerce raiders Sumter and Alabama, presents a picturesque portrait of nineteenth-century war at sea and foreign lands with salty terminology well calibrated for landlubbers. He composes not only as a preeminent seaman, but as an accomplished international lawyer and superb narrator. He also is an unapologetic, unreconstructed Rebel. Semmes interprets his ships and men as personifying the conflict—its causes, progression, and outcome—discoursing over seamanship, meteorology, oceanography, geography, naval technology, strategy, diplomacy, international law, and constitutional theory. I found Memoirs of Service Afloat to be an erudite, compelling portrait of the Confederate mind well worth studying for its own sake as well as a great sea story. It ranks among the best Civil War memoirs.

More than 170,000 African Americans served in the Union Army and navy during the Civil War. From 1863 on, they performed heroically on many battlefields, most famously at the assault on Fort Wagner in Charleston Harbor, as dramatically depicted in the film “Glory.” Much less well-known was the deliberate slaughter of nearly two hundred black federal troops at Fort Pillow, Tennessee in 1864, by Confederate forces led by Nathan Bedford Forrest, a prewar slaver trader and a postwar leader of the Ku Klux Klan. It was the worst wartime atrocity committed on U.S. soil outside the Indian wars. What happened at Fort Pillow demonstrated the additional risk that every black soldier in blue faced: not just injury, but murder or reenslavement by the enemy. Ward’s account moves at a pounding pace. More than the account of a single battle, it places the role of black troops in the larger context… show more.

I loved how this book blended the experience of Cadet William Hugh McDowell, a cadet from the Virginia Military Institute who fought in the Battle of New Market during the Civil War, with fictional modern-day Benjy, a 20th-century boy who is visiting his grandmother in New Market during his summer vacation. This book blends Benjy’s fictional story with Hugh’s historic and nonfiction life experience.

As a teaching tool, I was able to clarify the difference between fact and fiction for my students in our study of the Civil War. I was later amazed to learn that an element of the story that Elaine had created to tie the two boys together turned out to really exist–the boy’s watch.