California West

The California Trail is ruthless…but the past is the deadliest obstacle… Wesley, an orphan with a restless spirit, joins a wagon train on the California Trail, searching for a place to belong. Tessa, traveling with her brothers after their parents’ death, is just as stubborn—and just as determined to prove her strength. From the moment they meet, sparks fly, but not the kind that lead to love. They’re too different, too hot-headed, too busy trying to survive. But as the journey grows more perilous—harsh landscapes, ruthless outlaws, and their own demons—they’re forced into ...

A Decade of Love & Faith – Now in One Stunning Collection! For a decade, readers have fallen in love with Katie Wyatt heartwarming stories of faith, friendship, and enduring love. Now, by popular demand, comes The Complete California Historical Mail Order Bride Romance Series!, this newly revised and re-edited edition brings you all 8 beloved books in one captivating boxed set. Experience the Journey of Love, Faith & Second Chances From new beginnings to second chances, from heartbreak to redemption, follow the lives of courageous women and steadfast men as they navigate the challenges of...

A tiny flash of yellow in a California millrace was all it took to send the world running west. In 1848, James Marshall discovered gold near an unfinished sawmill. The news was supposed to remain secret. Instead, it emptied ships, abandoned farms, overwhelmed towns, created fortunes, destroyed fortunes, and transformed California almost overnight. Strange But True: The Weird History of the California Gold Rush digs beyond the familiar stories of bearded prospectors and overflowing gold pans to uncover the stranger, funnier, darker, and more surprising side of the rush west. Inside, you will...

Gold fever. It swept the country from coast to coast, luring more than a hundred thousand seekers to the untamed territory of California. For them, the Gold Rush of 1848 represented the American Dream come true. But for the settlers who lived there, it was an all-out assault on the homes they’d struggled so hard to build. Now boomtowns arise overnight, teeming with outlaws, killers, and desperate men. In Sacramento Valley, former Texas Ranger Rick Miller struggles to keep the peace with nothing more than a six shooter and guts.

At the height of the California gold rush in the late-1840's, a wagon train of men, women, children, and their animals stumbled into a 130-mile-long valley in the Mojave Desert through a "shortcut" to the California coast. What ensued was an ordeal that divided the camp into remnants and struck them with hunger, thirst, and a terrible sense of being lost and beyond hope, until one of their party volunteered to cross the desert to get help. This young hero was one of the survivors of the tragedy, and he lived to tell the tale in this gripping autobiographical account. In a time of unmarked ...

An exciting page-turner about a fearless female aviator competing in a death-defying race across the Pacific. Brilliantly told… My favorite read this year!” —Andie Newton, USA TODAY bestselling author of A Child for the Reich This extraordinary novel, inspired by real events, tells the...

The Histories of Alaska, Arizona, California & Colorado In One Collected Volume From the midnight sun of the Arctic Circle to the sun-scorched deserts of the Southwest, from fog-wrapped Pacific shores to the soaring peaks of the Rockies, the American West has always been a place where geography shapes destiny. In this compelling volume, Daniel Hardy traces the dramatic histories of four states that embody the western experience in all its complexity and contradiction. Through vivid storytelling and meticulous research, Hardy reveals how Alaska, Arizona, California, and Colorado transformed ...

A New York Times Most Anticipated Nonfiction Book of 2026 · A Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Fall National Book Award winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist Nathaniel Philbrick, author of In the Heart of the Sea and Mayflower, reveals how California’s Gold Rush forged the modern United...

A family ranch in Big Sur country and a legacy of Hollywood royalty set the stage for Nora Roberts’ emotional new suspense novel, Hideaway. Caitlyn Sullivan had come from a long line of Hollywood royalty, stretching back to her Irish immigrant great-grandfather. At nine, she was already a...

Miranda Simmons has one summer to catch a husband. Eighteen years old, traveling west with her newspaperman father and their creaking Conestoga wagon, she has two hundred men to choose from and a heart set on marrying rich. Baxter Brownlee seems perfect: handsome, wealthy, a gentleman in a black frock coat who kisses like poetry and talks of catching stars. Then there is Tex Wister: lazy, grinning, forever underfoot, the kind of man a girl laughs with, not the kind she marries. But as the wagon train pushes deeper into the Indian Nations, rumors follow them across the plains. Whole trains ...

The Complete Series 3 Books in one boxed set! Clean and Wholesome American mail order bride historical western short story romance. The three brave women in this series have courage in spades! They follow God and their hearts all the way across the country to the men of their dreams. But life in California’s wild west isn’t easy. There are dangers of many kinds, not to mention the challenge of building a relationship from scratch with a stranger. Liza Kennedy is the youngest of nine children in her family, but knows her parents can’t take care of her much longer. She answers an ad in ...

One of the most groundbreaking and highly acclaimed titles that Heyday has published, The Ohlone Way describes the culture of the Indian people who inhabited the Bay Area prior to the arrival of Europeans. Recently included in the San Francisco Chronicle’s “Top 100 Western Non-Fiction” list, The Ohlone Way has been described by critic Pat Holt as a “mini-classic”.

They walked a thousand miles to find a harbor that didn't exist. They found San Francisco Bay instead. They didn't want it. In 1769, a Spanish expedition of sixty-four men left San Diego under orders to locate the harbor of Monterey. Their engineer, Miguel Costansó, kept a diary of measurements: distances, latitudes, the depth of every pool, the height of a dead grizzly bear. He did not record feelings. He recorded facts. The facts are these: the men walked for six months through canyons and mountains and fog. They ate their mules when the food ran out. Seventeen soldiers were crippled by ...

Can fake dating lead to real love? In Kasie West's next sexy adult romcom two people must decide where the lie ends and the chemistry begins. "With her expressive voice, [narrator Karissa] Vacker captures the nuances of the characters...Vacker's talents draw listeners into the story." —Kirkus...

Beloved author Kasie West's sparkling adult rom-com debut about a hopeless romantic falling for the one man she never expected. Can a swipe right turn into swept away? Margot Hart is a hopeless romantic. That’s why she wants to be a literary agent—to help bring romance books to the world...

The Night Pool is a blood-soaked, page-turning horror set in the Gold Rush West, where three women must battle monsters both human and inhuman to survive—perfect for fans of Alma Katsu’s The Hunger and Victor LaValle’s Lone Women. The American West is no safe haven for women—least of all...

From a New York Times bestselling author, a masterful history of the American West—from the California Gold Rush to the settling of Oklahoma and beyond. "Epic in its scale, fearless in its scope, this is a bravura performance from one of our master historians." —Hampton Sides, bestselling...

Oregon Trail - 1848 A careless mistake nearly killed her. Angela lay bleeding and dying in a ravine, far from the wagon train. No one can hear her screams for help. Sent on a foolish mission, lost in the dark wilds, alone and stumbling before she plummets end-over-end to her doom. Her only hope was to survive, then someday she might find her runaway brother in San Francisco. As she cries out into the dark night, she prays for a miracle. Her closest friend Corinne, desperate to find her, will stop at nothing to save her. They have a friendship that no man can separate. Book 2 of the ...

A National Bestseller | A New Yorker Best Book of the Year Fifteen years after the publication of Evidence of Things Unseen, National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize finalist Marianne Wiggins returns with a “big, bold book” (USA TODAY) destined to be an American classic: a sweeping masterwork...

Soon to be a major motion picture directed by Christopher Storer Frank Machianno is a late-middle-aged ex-surf bum who runs a bait shack on the San Diego waterfront. An affable Italian with a love of people and life, he's a stand-up businessman, devoted father, and a beloved fixture in the...