weekend reads

If you find yourself with a little down time this weekend, why not pick up a good book?  We’ve got a few great weekend reads ranging from fun and thrill to romance that’ll make it difficult to put the book back down!

Girl Waits With Gun
By Amy Stewart
(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Novelist Amy Stewart’s thrilling tale of a blackmail case involving the Kopp sisters, real-life sleuths in Hackensack, New Jersey in the early 1900s, is riveting and great fun.  Constance, Norma, and Fleurette Kopp were stout-hearted daring women who maintained the family homestead after their parents died.  Trouble started for the trio when a car smashed into their buggy and injured one of the sisters.  When the wealthy silk manufacturer and smug owner of the motorcar not only refuses to pay for the damages, but threatens to harm the women, the sisters decide to take matters into their own hands to make sure the culprit takes responsibility for his careless actions.  A dangerous chain of events occur after the Kopps successfully sue the deceitful businessman.  The scoundrel and his friends begin terrorizing the women.  Constance has them arrested for assailing her on the street.  Insulted, the men drive to the Kopps’ farm and shoot at the house and its inmates.  The women arm themselves with revolvers until the villains can be located and brought to justice.  The blend of historical fiction with this true-life story is ingenious and makes Stewart’s book a pleasure to read.  The Kopp sisters are not shy and shrinking violets and the author’s style is just as bold.

weekend readsFast Into the Night
A woman, her dogs, and their journey north on the Iditarod Trail.
By Debbie Clarke Moderow
(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

The setting of this compelling title is the frigid Alaskan outback, but the story itself is truly heartwarming.  The author writes of her experience competing in the Iditarod and about the exceptional animals that pulled the sled along the thousand mile journey.  An adventurous outdoors woman, Moderow interweaves her personal tale of becoming a racer with an account of the race itself.  With gut-wrenching candor she shares how she dealt with failure, the death of her parents, and a grueling bout with depression to take part in an event referred to as the “Last Great Race on Earth.”  Debbie Moderow’s dedication and love for the Huskies that accompany her from Anchorage to Nome is the soul that drives this insightful and touching memoir.

weekend readsFalling from Horses
By Molly Gloss (Mariner Books)

Oregon writing professor and award-winning author, Molly Gloss, brilliantly captures the spirit of a 1930s movie cowboy and his pony in her book Falling from Horses.  Nineteen-year-old ranch hand Bud Frazer sets out for Hollywood with dreams of being a western star. It’s tough for Bud to leave his birthplace at Echol Creek, the ranch, and his parents who grieve the loss of his little sister, but he sets his sights on becoming a stunt rider in the movies — and working alongside the great screen cowboys of his youth.  Along the way, Bud meets an ambitious, talented screenwriter named Lily and their relationship grows as each try to make their mark on the motion picture industry.  A sad sidelight to Bud’s story is the account of the movie industry’s treatment of horses.  The camaraderie between the stuntman and the writer is enchanting and as their careers and friendships develop, a tragic secret is realized.  Gloss’s book is endearing and the description of the rough-riding will stay with readers long after the story has ended.

Reviews by Chris Enss, COWGIRL Book Editor, and a New York Times bestselling author who writes about women of the Old West.

Weekend Romance Reads

weekend reads

At Love’s Bidding
By Regina Jennings (Bethany House)
After helping her grandfather at their Boston auction house, Miranda Wimplegate discovers she’s accidentally sold a powerful family’s prized portrait to an anonymous bidder. Desperate to appease the furious family, her grandfather tracks it to the Missouri Ozarks and makes an outlandish offer to buy the local auction house.  Upon their arrival, however, they discover their new business doesn’t deal in fine antiques, but in livestock. And its manager, ruggedly handsome Wyatt Ballentine, is frustrated to discover his fussy new bosses don’t know a thing about the business he’s single-handedly kept afloat. Faced with more cattle than they can count–but no mysterious painting–Miranda and Wyatt form an unlikely but charged partnership to try and salvage a bad situation getting worse.


weekend reads

Texas on My Mind
By Delores Fossen (Harlequin)
Air Force Captain Riley McCord returns home on medical leave to find his childhood friend Claire Davidson is hoping to ensnare his heart for good.


weekend reads

Midnight Heat

By Cat Johnson (Kensington)
Two mysterious travelers find themselves sharing the cab of a truck on their way across the country, desperately trying to escape their secrets. But can they resist each other along the way?