Wilderness Fiction

December 13, 1920. It was a typical Monday morning when three US Navy officials boarded a hot-air balloon for an easy, routine training flight. But as evening came, heavy rain and wind knocked Lieutenants Louis Kloor, Stephen Farrell, and Walter Hinton off course, eventually forcing a crash landing deep within the snowy Canadian wilderness. As the men searched for salvation, they were overcome by freezing temperatures, starvation, and fatigue. To survive this harrowing experience, the brave military officers would have to go up against their greatest enemies yet.

When a 17-year-old track star turns up mangled and dead on the switchback road by the Crescent Hotel, his poker crew grows suspicious of one another. Ebur, a retired cowboy, finds himself in the middle of a once-trustworthy group who all knew and loved Brady. Or did they? And can he trust them if they think he killed the boy? Covering the broad swatch of lifestyles and struggles in off-peak Eureka Springs, Wilderness asks hard questions about retired men and those who try to tame them.

Strathnaver, Scotland, summer 1792. The Highland Clearances abruptly destroy Artis MacKay's idyllic world. Patrick Steller, the Countess of Sutherland's estate manager, murders Artis' family and burns her village. Forced into indentured servitude in the colonies, she becomes a Virginia plantation servant. After seven long years, Artis receives her freedom dues - land in Kentucky. Bear MacKee grew up in the Highlands too, but disease claims his parents on his family's voyage to the colonies.

Kelly McGuffin - an innocent victim of violence and neglect - is haunted by shame. At age 18, loneliness and danger compel her to leave her remote cabin in the Virginia mountains to travel west with the Wyllie brothers to Boonesborough, Kentucky. Kelly's feelings for her heroic rescuer, Sheriff William Wyllie, remain confused and obscured beneath her worsening veil of fear. Caught in the untamed world of the frontier - both breathtakingly beautiful and shockingly cruel - Kelly is unable to control her uncertain future.

A plague has devastated the land. Bloodthirsty creatures stalk the night. A loose band of survivors fight for their lives. Can they make it through? And what will become of them if they do?

Determined to give her son Jeremy the childhood he deserves, Chloe Evans has left a tough past behind and is starting fresh in the charming resort town of Jack Pine, Oregon. But protecting Jeremy becomes a dicey proposition when he seeks out the most dangerous man in town to heal his sick puppy. Chloe has been warned to stay away from Ben Longtree. But there's something about the gentle, untamed loner that intrigues her....

The International Peace Ascent is the brainchild of billionaire Sebastian Plank: Recruit a global team of young climbers and film an inspiring, world-uniting documentary. The adventure begins when fifteen-year-old Peak Marcello and his mountaineer mother are helicoptered to a remote base camp in the Hindu Kush Mountains on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. When the camp is attacked and his mother taken, Peak has no choice but to track down the perpetrators to try to save her.

In the winter of 1966, Katherine Reid moves to an isolated cabin deep in Georgia's Appalachian Mountains. There, with little more than a sleeping bag, a tin plate, and a loaded gun, she plans to spend her time in peaceful solitude. But one day Katherine realizes the woods are not empty, and she is not alone. Someone else is near, observing her every move.

What is a time? Is it a life? Is it a series of lives? It is the day of the devil's earth; and the Great Red Dragon is on the hunt for the illusive woman that could bring about the end of its reign. Concealing time and history as faith and science collide, God's plan takes form.

1861, Donegal, Ireland. Ten years ago Declan Conaghan’s father died in the Great Famine, and since then, Declan has kept his promise to keep his family out of the workhouse. But all that is threatened with the arrival of new landlord, John Adair. Adair is quick to cause trouble and fear among his tenants. When he turns them off his land, Declan has no option but to break his promise. Declan is in despair until he receives a letter from America offering him the chance of a new life and salvation for his family. But it would mean signing up to the US Army and fighting for Lincoln.

Young, high-spirited Fanny has been fortunate in her civilized upbringing, but the London she has grown up in is riddled with danger and brutality. When a sinister stranger traps her family into debt in order to advance on Fanny, she is forced to take refuge in France, where she meets a young French soldier, Philippe de Saint-Christophe.

Algren’s classic 1947 short story collection is the pure vein Algren would mine for all his subsequent novels and stories. The stories in this collection are literary triumphs that “don’t fade away.” Among the stories included here are “A Bottle of Milk for Mother”, about a Chicago youth being cornered for a murder, and “The Face on the Barrome Floor”, in which a legless man pummels another man nearly to death - the seeds that would grow into the novel Never Come Morning.

Faith Allen went to live with her aunt and uncle in the Kentucky mountains after her parents died. They hadn’t been cruel, but they hadn’t been loving and kind, either; and they expected her to work hard. When their son strikes it rich in the California gold rush, they pack up to head to California via the Oregon Trail.

The third volume of this gripping family saga, End of the Chapter, shifts to the Cherrells - cousins of the Forsytes by marriage. Young Dinny Cherrell in particular cherishes their ancestral home, Condaford Grange, which represents stability in a rapidly changing world. Through his depiction of the lives and loves of this family, Galsworthy throws a brilliant spotlight on the social and political upheavals of the 1930s.

The World My Wilderness was published in 1955 and follows the story of Barbary Deniston, a 17-year-old girl growing up in London during World War II. Barbary’s parents are divorced, and she divides her time between her mother’s bohemian lifestyle and her father’s more conventional life. The novel explores themes of identity, family, and the impact of war on individuals and society. It is considered one of Macaulay’s most personal and autobiographical works.

"If you, too, feel like wandering, come along and help me unravel this odd tale - a tale full of half-truths, whole-truths, and no-truths at all." So begins Frank Capra's never published, and often speculated about novel of his favorite place - Silver Lake, nestled in the jagged cliffs of the eastern Sierra Nevadas. Capra casts the fictional Frank Capra in the lead roll of this novel of environmental and humanitarian preservation.

Sefia knows what it means to survive. After her father is brutally murdered, she flees into the wilderness with her aunt Nin, who teaches her to hunt, track, and steal. But when Nin is kidnapped, leaving Sefia completely alone, none of her survival skills can help her discover where Nin's been taken, or if she's even alive. The only clue to both her aunt's disappearance and her father's murder is the odd rectangular object her father left behind, an object she comes to realize is a book - an item unheard of in her illiterate society.

When Artemis Borke opens a trading post in Nate King's territory, both settlers and Shoshone have access to goods and supplies. But Borke also begins to sell liquor, which has severe consequences for the Shoshone warriors - even more so when bloodthirsty Crows target the village.

The King family has always appreciated the remoteness of their valley deep in the Rocky Mountains. There, they have all the freedom they could desire. But the long trip to Bent's Fort for supplies is one of the few downsides. All that changes when a newcomer opens the first general store in their region. The mountain men and scattered settlers are delighted — until people start to disappear, and dark whispers hint that a seed of evil has taken root in the wilderness.

Will Epstein had it all - playboy good looks, wealth and prestige, and a gorgeous fiance to costar with him on a reality television show. But that was years ago, before he was abandoned at the altar on national television. In the aftermath, Will's world crumbled, leaving him humiliated and lost. Andre Rivera married his first love and lived a dream life until tragedy stepped in. His wife's sudden death left him devastated and struggling to build a life for his young daughter. Being a pilot offers Andre a sense of freedom from Lavender Shores, but he feels unable move forward.