Small Town...Big Secret Georgetown, Kentucky, 1939 Soon after dawn on a February morning, Elliott Chapel discovers an unconscious, bloodied, young woman lying face up in the cold waters of Penny creek. Days later, awakening from her hypothermic coma, Ellie Evans finds herself on the Chapel Farm. Once she explains her plight as the abused wife of a powerful man, Elliott offers her and her son a place to stay and vows to keep them from harm For both Ellie and Elliott, life under the same roof is a challenge—with the cantankerous Paul Chapel, Elliott’s father who spends his retirement days drinking whiskey with his aging coonhound by his side. Elliott has taken over the daily operations of the horse farm with his assistant, Booley. Booley manages a small staff and helps Elliott attempt the impossible with the newly-acquired horse of a high-profile client. Ellie pitches in and helps out when she can and helps change the mood of the busy farm with her sweet charm and culinary skills, even getting on the good side of the bad-tempered Paul Chapel. Just when daily life settles into an enjoyable rhythm, a violent struggle erupts when the malicious Mayor Evans descends on the farm with the county sheriff and two deputies. Armed with shotguns, they remove Ellie and her son from the farm, against her will. Narrated by Elliott five decades later, he recalls the incident on the chapel Farm and subsequent events which ultimately reveal the long-kept secret—hidden in a small town since 1939.

The Dead Have No Love for the Living In the Land of Dead Horses tells the story of Texas Ranger Jewel T. Lightfoot’s pursuit of and confrontation with a resurrected horror from another age—a manifestation of the Mayan god of darkness, unearthed from its subterranean crypt in the wastelands of the Chihuahuan Desert and set loose on an unsuspecting world. Lightfoot, a hard-drinking Texas Ranger, is aided by an aging silver miner named Ernesto Zavala and his grandson Antonio, a rangy firebrand who longs to free his people from the rule of Porfirio Diaz’s corrupt Mexican government. Together, these unlikely heroes face off against a sinister German academic, a trio of religious fanatics who wants to restore the glory of the Mayan empire, and a horror from the depths of history that grows stronger with each setting sun. ​Join Jewel Lightfoot in what Kirkus Reviews calls "a paranormal whodunit that offers a gripping battle between good and evil." But be careful: Not everyone who rides out of Austin in the fall of 1908 is going to make it back alive.

This collection is a fine balance of attitude and anecdote in the best essay writing tradition. The author muses on topics as diverse as God's gold swing and a triathalon involving horses, women and champagne. On Modern Medicine: Once a visit to a doctor involved examining you and prescribing treatment. Nowadays he will not touch you, and he assumes the guise of a simpleton. Present yourself with an axe in your skull and he will not hazard a guess as to the source of your discomfort until you have had X-rays, blood tests, cat scans, ultrasounds and exhausted the possibilities of every diagnostic machine within a hundred mile radius. On Language: Language came into being when the female arrived back earlier than expected from the berry picking expedition and found her partner with his head under the bear skin of the lady from the cave next door. Necessity is the mother of invention. He now has a need for language, without it he is dead meat. He has no hope. But if he can blurt out, "I was looking for your lost flintstone," or "It's an old folk remedy for migraine," or even "She made me do it." Then he has a chance, albeit a slim one. We didn't get where we are today without optimism. On the selling of women: Surely no one would argue that a man's house should come cheaper than his wife. When was the last time you saw a man walk away from a piece of real estate? Yet they abandon their wives all the time. The difference being the latter have no re-sale value. This delightful collection, beautifully written, will provoke thought and laughter at the same time.

SPUR AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR ROD MILLER It is 1840. The fur trade has all but ended and trappers in Taos feel the pinch. With a band of Ute Indians, they follow the Old Spanish Trail to California to steal horses and mules, then return and reap the profits in Santa Fe. The unprecedented raid results in the theft of some 3,000 animals. Daniel Boone Pickens, a young man on the run from the law in Missouri and in search of a future, signs on for the adventure. Nooch, a young Ute, follows the leader of his band to prove his worth as a warrior. A young vaquero from California, Juan Medina, finds himself involved more from circumstance than choice. Along the trail, the young men forge bonds that surpass race and culture as they face hunger and thirst, fire and flood, bullet and blade. And together they grieve the deaths of more than a thousand of the stolen horses and mules on a mad dash across the dry and desolate Mojave Desert. Based on the real-life exploits of mountain men “Pegleg” Smith, “Old Bill” Williams, and Jim Beckwourth with Ute leader Wakara, A Thousand Dead Horses dramatizes conflicts in the evolving Old West.

What does one do when one has literally reached the very depth of despair and loss? How does one find that sense of inspiration and hope for a better life? Is all lost? Will my life become an inspiration and hope for others? The stories woven in All the Dead Horses are true and actually happened. The “Dead Horses” act as a metaphor for all the many tragedies, hurts, betrayals, and all manner of injustice that we have left behind on our journey of life and in many ways hold us back from moving forward in life. Through courage, determination and the underestimated power of community and love the two characters in this book weave a magnificent message of inspiration, courage, hope, community, faith and love. Follow the many twists and turns in their lives, and may you find in your own life the many inspirations around you that may bring to others as well.

On May 1, 1982, eighteen-year-old Martin Oliphant watches a horse drown off the shore of Lake Michigan--the first of four equine corpses marking the trail that will lead Martin out of the small-minded small town of Pierre, Michigan, onto the open ranges of Elko, Nevada, and into the open arms, or at least open mics, of the cowboy poets who gather there to perform. Along the way, he nurtures a dying mother, who insists the only thing wrong with her is tennis elbow; corrals a demented father, who believes he's Father Christmas; assists the dissolute local newspaper editor; and serves stints as horse rustler and pet mortician. For thirty years, Martin searches for an escape route to the West, to poetry, and to his first love, the cowgirl Ginger, but never manages to get much farther than the city limits of his Midwestern hometown--that is, until a world famous cow horse dies while touring through Pierre, and Martin is tapped to transport its remains to the funeral at the 32nd Annual Elko Cowboy Poetry Confluence.

During a November ice storm, equine insurance agent, Connie Holt, is called to a breeding farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, where she finds a prize stallion dead in his stall?and a dead man huddled in the corner. Tension mounts as two more horses in the area die under similar suspicious circumstances. Connie suspects that someone is systematically killing very expensive stallions with great breeding potential, but has no proof. Connie's investigation, with the help of her boss, Cary McCutcheon, moves her ever closer to discovering how the murders were accomplished and the murderer's identity. To make matters worse, she is dealing with a personal crisis, a love that can?t be returned. Will she unmask the killer before more horses die?