# American West: Historical Fiction: Book Recommendations?



## libro (Dec 3, 2008)

Since I'm rather new to extensive reading in fiction, I'd love any Kindle book or author recommendations based on my interests below.  (Prior to my Kindle, I read mostly nonfiction and have since become entranced by fiction!)  

I have a major in History with a concentration of my studies in western U.S. cultural history of the 19th century.  My nonfiction reading since college has largely been this same subject with a particular interest in pioneer passages, native American Indians, the settlement of historic towns, etc.  I recently read a couple of Jim Fergus' books and enjoyed them and will be starting the Sarah Agnes Prine novels by Nancy Turner after the book I'm currently reading.

One of my favorite things to do when traveling the West is to visit ghost towns, historic settlement towns, tours of historic homes, etc.  I love engrossing myself in the history of an old western town, so much so that I must very old cemeteries (prior to the early 1900s), visit local museums, stay overnight in historic B&Bs, etc.  Yes, tour old cemeteries.  No, I don't have an interest in the dead, only the history behind the town and its people, and cemeteries and local genealogy are often very telling in this regard.  I know.....this seems strange to many people, but really I am normal 

If you can think of any, I'd love any book or author recommendations in Kindle fiction.  Thanks!


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## BrassMan (Dec 8, 2008)

Here are some I enjoyed that you might not otherwise find. Celia Hayes does meticulously accurate research, down to the layouts of the houses and streets. Marva Dasef's book is based on stories of her grandfather.







and



and also, by a different author,



Best!
Al
aka BrassMan, the Distant Cousin guy


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## libro (Dec 3, 2008)

Hi Al!  I can't thank you enough for linking all of those Celia Hayes novels to your post!  I just finished sending myself a sample of each one!  ....and to think I didn't even scare you off with my "tour the old cemeteries" story?  

You're the best, Al.  It takes a great author to know one!

Thanks!


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## BrassMan (Dec 8, 2008)

No problem! The Adelsverein trilogy I found highly readable, and the other two are very good also. To Truckee's Trail is a fictional recreation of a real wagon train, from a journal and letters, I believe.  

Cemetary visiting is a hobby in Texas, for some, anyway. I live 30 miles from the site of the Goliad massacre (featured in The Gathering), and the victims were buried right by the Presidio. It's a state monument, and re-enacters do their thing there every year. It'll take more than a cemetary story to scare me off.

I hope you enjoy the books.


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## bkworm8it (Nov 17, 2008)

I just had to add that Cemetery visiting is a hobby of my families when I was growing up. Just about every place we visited we had to stop at the cemetery. We had found some really old ones and it was fun finding the oldest date and wondering about their lives. Seems I've kept up the tradition, went to visit Reno a few years back and made it to a couple of cemeteries out there. LOL

Anywho, 

thanks for this post I'm downloading some samples too!

theresam

Oh you've probably already read it but in case not... Jeff Hepple wrote a wonderful fiction about the American Revolution - Gone for a Soldier. It was a very enjoyable book.


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## BrassMan (Dec 8, 2008)

I toured a bit around downtown Philadelphia when my daughter #2 was in school there. I remember being particularly interested in a small cemetery by Washington's (?) Franklin's (?) little church. Cool stuff, really.

Re Gone for a Soldier. I was thinking about that one, and also about his first book about La Malinche. Have you tried that one? I guess I could go for both, but I'll probably start with one or the other. I feel close to our Hispanic roots. I'll take anyone's advice...even Jeff's!


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## bkworm8it (Nov 17, 2008)

I would like to visit that cemetery. I'd love to walk through Arlington too.

I've got LaMalinche but haven't read it yet. I really enjoyed Gone for a Soldier. Made me appreciate what those soldiers went through for my freedom. I think you will enjoy it. I'm planning on reading the other a little later. 

Id say you should read La Malinche first, knowing how good Gone for a Soldier was it's got to be good too.


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## BrassMan (Dec 8, 2008)

OK, good enough. I'll do it that way. Now it's Jeff's turn. Calling McGregor!


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## libro (Dec 3, 2008)

bkworm8it said:


> I just had to add that Cemetery visiting is a hobby of my families when I was growing up. Just about every place we visited we had to stop at the cemetery. We had found some really old ones and it was fun finding the oldest date and wondering about their lives.


Phew....now I don't feel quite so odd. I definitely draw the line on visiting very old cemeteries and have no interest in newer ones at all. After reading a few books about the Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918-1919, I find many graves with those dates that were non-WWI related were often attributed to the pandemic. My family just stays in the car and leaves me alone to wonder as I walk along....they think it's morbid, while to me it's historic interest. At this point, I think they're just teasing me.

Apparently I'm not the only one -- this artist has written a book on grave history in the Prescott, Arizona area, including tying newspaper articles and death certificates to each gravestone at a local cemetery there. There are a few PDF sample pages from the book on this page about midway down: http://www.vintage-ebooks.com/Prescott_Arizona_Cemetery.htm


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## marianneg (Nov 4, 2008)

Elmer Kelton is great. I am sooo not a fan of westerns, but I was required to read one of his books in jr. high TX history, and it was quite good. Here's some of his on Kindle:




I think _Texas Sunrise_ is his latest; I got it for my dad for Christmas last year.

I do get your cemetery thing, too. I wouldn't say it's a hobby of mine, but I do find them quite interesting, and the older the better. My grandmother was buried in a tiny country cemetery that we had to drive several miles down a dirt road to get to! It was so interesting to see where my great-grandparents were buried, and the other families that lived in the area.


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## bkworm8it (Nov 17, 2008)

libro said:


> Apparently I'm not the only one -- this artist has written a book on grave history in the Prescott, Arizona area, including tying newspaper articles and death certificates to each gravestone at a local cemetery there. There are a few PDF sample pages from the book on this page about midway down: http://www.vintage-ebooks.com/Prescott_Arizona_Cemetery.htm


now that sounds fascinating. I'll download the sample.

Seems our little band of cemetery walking has grown by 1 - nice to have company!

theresam


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## libro (Dec 3, 2008)

theresam -- Same....good to have company!  Here at home everyone teases me.

You would think the history major and love for all things historic would be a major tip-off that I'm not crazy!

I've been to the cemetery in that book, but the family waited in the car.  Maybe they're afraid of ghosts


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## Jeff (Oct 28, 2008)

BrassMan said:


> OK, good enough. I'll do it that way. Now it's Jeff's turn. Calling McGregor!


Wow, you can really shout loud, Al. Hello from McGregor!

I honestly don't know if you'd like _The Treasure of La Malinche_ or not. It's more of an adventure story with an interwoven historical thread. You can download it free in Mobipocket format if you'd like to take a look:

http://www.eliscopublishing.com/promotions/free_books.asp

I worked very hard at keeping _Gone For a Soldier_ historically accurate so judging from your comments on this forum about other books that you've enjoyed, you might like it better. If you want a copy send me a PM and I'll gladly give you a download link.

Thank you for your kind words, Theresa. I do sincerely appreciate them and hope you like _The Treasure of La Malinche_ as much as you did _Gone For a Soldier_.

Just so I won't be accused of spamming or hijacking the thread; has anyone mentioned fellow Texan Larry McMurtry? His work is not limited to only historical westerns. Here are his books and film credits lifted from Wikipedia:

1961 - Horseman, Pass By - adapted for film as Hud
1963 - Leaving Cheyenne - adapted for film as Lovin' Molly
1966 - The Last Picture Show - adapted into a film of the same name
1968 - In A Narrow Grave
1970 - Moving On
1972 - All My Friends Are Going To Be Strangers
1974 - It's Always We Rambled (essay)
1975 - Terms of Endearment - adapted into a film of the same name
1978 - Somebody's Darling
1982 - Cadillac Jack
1983 - Desert Rose
1985 - Lonesome Dove, 1986 Pulitzer Prize winner, and first of what became a series
1987 - Texasville - adapted into a film of the same name - A continuation of the story begun in The Last Picture Show
1987 - Film Flam
1988 - Anything For Billy
1988 - The Murder of Mary Phagan - TV story
1989 - Some Can Whistle
1990 - Buffalo Girls - adapted into a TV movie
1990 - Montana - TV movie
1992 - The Evening Star - adapted for film as The Evening Star - A continuation of the story begun in Terms of Endearment
1992 - Memphis - TV movie
1992 - Falling from Grace
1993 - Streets of Laredo, another in the Lonesome Dove series
1994 - Pretty Boy Floyd (with Diana Ossana)
1995 - Dead Man's Walk, another in the Lonesome Dove series
1995 - The Late Child
1997 - Comanche Moon, the last as of 2007 of the Lonesome Dove series
1997 - Zeke and Ned (with Diana Ossana)
1999 - Crazy Horse
1999 - Duane's Depressed - A continuation of The Last Picture Show and Texasville story
1999 - Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen
1999 - Still Wild: A Collection of Western Stories
2000 - Roads: Driving America's Great Highways
2000 - Boone's Lick
2001 - Sacagawea's Nickname (essays on the American West)
2002 - Sin Killer - The Berrybender Narratives, Book 1
2002 - Paradise
2002 - Johnson County War - TV mini-series
2003 - The Wandering Hill - The Berrybender Narratives, Book 2
2003 - By Sorrow's River - The Berrybender Narratives, Book 3
2004 - Folly and Glory: A Novel - The Berrybender Narratives, Book 4
2005 - Brokeback Mountain (with Diana Ossana) - Oscar-winning screenplay (adapted from the short story by E. Annie Proulx)


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## BrassMan (Dec 8, 2008)

One of my daughters had a sixth grade teacher that took the class to a cemetary to do rubbings and so forth. Another teacher (I can't remember the details) had her class compile statistical data and vital statistics. I don't see anything weird at all about that.


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## BrassMan (Dec 8, 2008)

Thanks for the kind offer, Jeff, but I already bought the book in Kindle format. Generally, I prefer my historical fiction accurate, so it doesn't mess up what little I already know, but I like it all. After I see a movie like Amadeus or Amistad the first thing I usually do is check the history, to be sure I don't remember bogus history. The fact that La Malinche has other stories from other times woven into it won't bother me at all. I'll get to Gone for a Soldier too, eventually. Distant Cousin, on the other hand, could be speculative history? Speculative fiction? Hell, I don't know.


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## libro (Dec 3, 2008)

Hi Jeff -- Another fine author in this thread...love it!  Gone For a Soldier sounds right up my alley.  I didn't know you were the author, Jeff.  (I guess I just assumed you loved the book and used it as an avatar...silly of me.)  That's what I get for breezing through these topics so quickly and not paying more attention!

I'm off to go check out Gone For a Solider on my Kindle.  I love true historical fiction that's well researched, so I can't wait to check it out.  I'm glad Al gave you a "shout out"


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## Jeff (Oct 28, 2008)

libro said:


> ...I'm off to go check out Gone For a Solider on my Kindle.


Thank you. Download the sample and if you like it send me a PM and I'll give you a free copy.

EDIT: Here's the link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001GCVDSE



BrassMan said:


> Distant Cousin, on the other hand, could be speculative history?


_Distant Cousin_ may need a genre of its own. As a rule I avoid all science fiction and so after you began posting here I was slow in downloading _Distant Cousin_. After reading the first few pages however, I was glad that I'd broken my own rule. Whatever genre it is, _Distant Cousin_ is a good read.


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## bkworm8it (Nov 17, 2008)

libro said:


> Hi Jeff -- Another fine author in this thread...love it! Gone For a Soldier sounds right up my alley. I didn't know you were the author, Jeff. (I guess I just assumed you loved the book and used it as an avatar...silly of me.) That's what I get for breezing through these topics so quickly and not paying more attention!
> 
> I'm off to go check out Gone For a Solider on my Kindle. I love true historical fiction that's well researched, so I can't wait to check it out. I'm glad Al gave you a "shout out"


Libro you will really enjoy this book. I stayed up several nights into wee hours wanting to see what happened next. I loved Anna and John,and the horse!! I think I may have already said that but can't say it enough.

Al, I do the same thing, look up history to see what was correct. I enjoy finding out more historical info.


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## BrassMan (Dec 8, 2008)

At present I'm reading Mozart's Wife. It certainly feels accurate. I owe it to myself to do a little checking when I finish, but I'll bet anything it's meticulously so. It's very enjoyable.


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## libro (Dec 3, 2008)

You guys are taunting me with new book choices!  Al, I just checked out Mozart's Wife, which looks so interesting, so that's a must read...then, of course, Amazon offered me related recommendations on the same screen, which looked equally interesting with well-starred reviews, including:

The Space Between Us (Thrity, Umrigar)
Mozart's Sister: A Novel (Rita Charbonnier)
Mistress of the Revolution (Catherine Delors)
Hannah's Dreams (Diane Hammond)
Bittersweet (Nevada, Barr)


Okay, I am officially lost in the Amazon book forest...but I don't want to come out


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## Forster (Mar 9, 2009)

Not a fiction book, but fantastic none the less:



And oh, click the I want this on the kindle while your at it.


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## BrassMan (Dec 8, 2008)

I don't know those you mentioned, libro. Maybe some other KBer has read one, or more. Judith Waldron, the author of Mozart's Wife, is a KB member, by the way. If you search for the book by the title you might find some Board comments. It's been well received.


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## libro (Dec 3, 2008)

Forster -- I'm a hopeless lover of history, so nonfiction, fiction, I can't turn it away, especially in certain interest areas.  I did click on it for Kindle release!

Al -- I didn't know Judith Waldron (Mozart's Wife) was a member of the KB forum....nice to have all these great authors here.


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## Forster (Mar 9, 2009)

Got a couple more for ya, actually anything by A.B. Guthrie Jr. is good.

Unfortunately not available for Kindle yet either.


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## Kind (Jan 28, 2009)

I love reading about History... some pretty good suggestions here guys. Keep it up!


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## BrassMan (Dec 8, 2008)

OK, then. Here's one of my very favorite historical novels. It's highly appropriate for someone interested in the history of the West. That it's basically true just blew my mind. The events took place mostly in northern Mexico before and during the Mexican Revolution, affecting west Texas and Arizona in particular. I grew up in El Paso and it's a shame that I never heard Teresita Urrea mentioned in any class I had there, or in any civic context. It's about the author's great aunt, and I researched it a good bit after I read it. The author invented the dialogue, but the basic facts of the story are undisputed. It contains a bit of Spanish, but one need not know Spanish to enjoy it.

Here's what I originally posted in December in the Books Recommended by Our Members thread:



Twenty years in the making, Urrea's epic novel recounts the true story of his great-aunt Teresita. In 1873, amid the political turbulence of General Porfirio Díaz's Mexican republic, Teresita is born to a fourteen-year-old Indian girl, "mounted and forgotten" by her white master. Don Tomàs Urrea later takes his illegitimate daughter into his home, where she learns to bathe every week and read "Las Hermanas Brontë." But Teresita also continues a folk education as a curandera, discovering healing powers and a mystical relationship with God. Indian pilgrims swarm to the Urrea ranch, where "St. Teresita," a mestiza Joan of Arc, kindles in them a powerful faith in God and a perilous hunger for revolution. The novel brings to life not only the deeply pious figure whom Díaz himself dubbed "the Most Dangerous Girl in Mexico" but also the blood-soaked landscape of pre-revolutionary Mexico.


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## libro (Dec 3, 2008)

I read these books days before K2 arrived and they kept me busy! Only the second novel is currently available on Kindle, although I did prefer the first, One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd. I was sad to see the end of the first novel, as I felt very close to the characters.

 (please click)

 (available on Kindle)

Thanks, everyone, for your recommendations! BTW, does anyone know if it helps at all if we click more than once for a book to go Kindle? _(sounds of a desperate plea)_


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## bkworm8it (Nov 17, 2008)

BrassMan said:


> Here's what I originally posted in December in the Books Recommended by Our Members thread:


This one sounds good, I've added a sample to my kindle. I'm also sampling Mozart's Wife.

I'm not sure how often it takes to click before they go to kindle. I have several that I want and others have helped clicked on that still have not become kindlized. Been asking since November but I'm not giving up!

theresam


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## Anju  (Nov 8, 2008)

I have read Hummingbird's Daughter, in the DTV and it was quite good.  Gone for a Soldier is excellent, Distant Cousin is excellent, I am currently reading The Treasure of La Malinche , it is a grabber!  I love the way Jeff intersperses current and history together.

You want factual history?  The Oregon Trail: sketchers of prairie and rocky-mountain life by Francis Parkman, 1823-1893 - I am reading it in bits and spurts.  I think it is a freebie from Amazon, and probably will still be, a PD book.

I absolutely love westerns, Rye James is one of our authors and writes a good western, just wish there were some more.


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## BrassMan (Dec 8, 2008)

Anju No. 469 said:


> You want factual history?


You didn't actually say YOU wanted factual history, but if you do, I'll repeat another recommendation of an up-and-coming-currently-little-known book based on an actual travel journal:


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## libro (Dec 3, 2008)

Great recommendations. Yep, I'll soak up nonfiction, fiction, just send me back in time to the 19th century.

I saw a couple tales about the Donner Party just now....sending myself sample chapters. Can't find the Kindle link on Snow Mountain Passage, but here goes for both. Amazon also has some Kindle freebies and bargains relating to the Donner Party, but the reviews were not as good.

Historical fiction:


Historical nonfiction:


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## chynared21 (Oct 28, 2008)

libro said:


> You guys are taunting me with new book choices! Al, I just checked out Mozart's Wife, which looks so interesting, so that's a must read...then, of course, Amazon offered me related recommendations on the same screen, which looked equally interesting with well-starred reviews, including:
> 
> The Space Between Us (Thrity, Umrigar)
> Mozart's Sister: A Novel (Rita Charbonnier)
> ...


*Libro...if you're interested in Mistress of the Revolution, you may like To Dance With Kings which I had gotten when it was 32 cents. I haven't gotten around to reading it though.


If you ever happen to make it to Staten Island, we have many old cemeteries and quite a few of them are haunted. We have Vanderbilts, Revolutionary soldiers, slaves, etc. roaming around in some of the cemeteries. Some of them date back to the 1700s.*


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## CeliaHayes (May 25, 2009)

Oh, my - someone has recommended "To Truckee's Trail"? Lovely - I've always thought of it as the "anti-Donner Party" book but the diary and the letters in it are all made up. Doctor Townsend was supposed to have kept a diary, which was never found - and I just went and sort of reconstructed them, and what an educated diary-keeper of the 19th century would have put into his. There are plenty of examples of authentic diaries.

The interesting thing to me was - the Stephens Townsend party was pretty much the same kind of people as the Donners, and the Reeds, with the same kind of gear and stores, going over the same trail, at the same time of year, got stuck in the same deep winter snows ... but the Donner Party got stranded and lost half their number to starvation ... while the Stephens-Townsend party made it over the mountains safely, and with two more than they started out with. Everyone has heard of one, but hardly anything of the other. What was the difference!


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## BrassMan (Dec 8, 2008)

This is a great thread. I'm glad it's still going.

I'm presently churning through _La Malinche_ as I promised, and enjoying it a lot. Like all absorbing historical fiction, it has whetted my appetite for facts. I have the feeling Jeff filled in lots of blanks, but the story is reviving old memories of the fun I had reading Bernal Diaz _The Conquest of New Spain_. I'm gettin' the chops to go back into that era and wallow a bit.

Thanks, Jeff!


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## drenee (Nov 11, 2008)

My son has read Gone for a Soldier and La Malince I, and is now reading La Malinche II.  He called me today to talk about them.  He really is enjoying them.  I knew he would. 
I will add my Thanks, Jeff!
deb


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