{"id":60265,"date":"2026-02-16T06:00:52","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T12:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/?p=60265"},"modified":"2025-12-23T13:30:17","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T19:30:17","slug":"new-westerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/new-westerns\/","title":{"rendered":"New Westerns"},"content":{"rendered":"

When looking at the new shelves, I noticed a trend in westerns that are not the traditional gun-slinging westerns that your grandparents read. While hard to explain, I highly recommend that you check out one of the new westerns listed below to see if you like them! As of this writing, these titles are owned by the Davenport Public Library. Descriptions are provided by the publishers.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Amity<\/a><\/strong><\/em> by Nathan Harris<\/p>\n

New Orleans, 1866. The Civil War might be over, but formerly enslaved Coleman and June have yet to find the freedom they\u2019ve been promised. Two years ago, the siblings were separated when their old master, Mr. Harper, took June away to Mexico, where he hoped to escape the new reality of the postbellum South. Coleman stayed behind in Louisiana to serve the Harper family, clinging to the hope that one day June would return.<\/em><\/p>\n

When an unexpected letter from Mr. Harper arrives, summoning Coleman to Mexico, Coleman thinks that finally his prayers have been answered. What Coleman cannot know is the tangled truth of June\u2019s tribulations under Mr. Harper out on the frontier. And when disaster strikes Coleman\u2019s journey, he is forced on the run with Mr. Harper\u2019s daughter, Florence. Together, they venture into the Mexican desert to find June, all the while evading two crooked brothers who\u2019ll stop at nothing to capture Coleman and Florence and collect the money they\u2019re owed. As Coleman and June separately navigate a perilous, parched landscape, the siblings learn quickly that freedom isn\u2019t always given\u2014sometimes, it must be taken by force.<\/em> – Little, Brown and Company<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>The Antidote<\/a><\/strong><\/em> by Karen Russell<\/p>\n

The Antidote opens on Black Sunday, as a historic dust storm ravages the fictional town of Uz, Nebraska. But Uz is already collapsing\u2014not just under the weight of the Great Depression and the dust bowl drought but beneath its own violent histories. The Antidote follows a \u201cPrairie Witch,\u201d whose body serves as a bank vault for peoples\u2019 memories and secrets; a Polish wheat farmer who learns how quickly a hoarded blessing can become a curse; his orphan niece, a basketball star and witch\u2019s apprentice in furious flight from her grief; a voluble scarecrow; and a New Deal photographer whose time-traveling camera threatens to reveal both the town\u2019s secrets and its fate.<\/em><\/p>\n

Russell\u2019s novel is above all a reckoning with a nation\u2019s forgetting\u2014enacting the settler amnesia and willful omissions passed down from generation to generation, and unearthing not only horrors but shimmering possibilities. The Antidote echoes with urgent warnings for our own climate emergency, challenging readers with a vision of what might have been\u2014and what still could be.<\/em> – Knopf<\/p>\n

This title is also available in large print.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>The Buffalo Hunter Hunter<\/a><\/strong><\/em> by Stephen Graham Jones<\/p>\n

The New York Times bestseller and \u201chorror masterpiece\u201d (NPR) from Stephen Graham Jones\u2014the master of modern horror\u2014is a chilling historical horror novel tracing the life of a vampire who haunts the fields of the Blackfeet reservation looking for justice.<\/em><\/p>\n

A diary, written in 1912 by a Lutheran pastor is discovered within a wall. What it unveils is a slow massacre, a chain of events that go back to 217 Blackfeet dead in the snow. Told in transcribed interviews by a Blackfeet named Good Stab, who shares the narrative of his peculiar life over a series of confessional visits. This is an American Indian revenge story written by one of the new masters of horror, Stephen Graham Jones. <\/em>– S&S \/ Saga Press<\/p>\n

This title is also available in large print.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>The Country Under Heaven<\/a><\/strong><\/em> by Frederic S. Durbin<\/p>\n

Louis L\u2019Amour meets H.P. Lovecraft in this thrilling western epic about a former Civil War soldier wracked by enigmatic visions . . .<\/em><\/p>\n

Set in the 1880s, the story follows Ovid Vesper, a former Union soldier who has been having enigmatic visions after surviving one of the Civil War\u2019s most gruesome battles, the Battle of Antietam. As he travels across the country following those visions, he finds himself in stranger and increasingly more dangerous encounters with other worlds hidden in the spaces of his own mind, not to mention the dangers of the Wild West.<\/em><\/p>\n

Ovid brings his steady calm and compassion as he helps the people of a broken country, rapidly changing but, like himself, still reeling and wounded from the war. He assists with matters of all sorts, from odd jobs around the house, to guiding children back to their own universe, to hunting down unnatural creatures that stalk the night \u2014 all the while seeking his own personal resolution and peace from his visions.<\/em><\/p>\n

Ovid\u2019s epic journey across the American West with a surprising cast of characters blends elements of the classic Western with historical fantasy in a way like no other.<\/em> – Melville House<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Love is a War Song<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>by Danica Nava<\/p>\n

A Muscogee pop star and a cowboy who couldn\u2019t be more different come together to strike a deal in this new romantic comedy by Danica Nava, USA Today bestselling author of The Truth According to Ember.<\/em><\/p>\n

Pop singer Avery Fox has become a national joke after posing scantily clad on the cover of Rolling Stone in a feather warbonnet. What was meant to be a statement of her success as a Native American singer has turned her into a social pariah and dubbed her a fake. With threats coming from every direction and her career at a standstill, she escapes to her estranged grandmother Lottie\u2019s ranch in Oklahoma. Living on the rez is new to Avery\u2014not only does she have to work in the blazing summer heat to earn her keep, but the man who runs Lottie\u2019s horse ranch despises her and wants her gone.<\/em><\/p>\n

Red Fox Ranch has been home to Lucas Iron Eyes since he was sixteen years old. He has lived by three rules to keep himself out of trouble: 1) preserve the culture, 2) respect the horses, and 3) stick to himself. When he is tasked with picking up Lottie\u2019s granddaughter at the bus station, the last person he expected to see is the Avery Fox. Lucas can\u2019t stand what she represents, but when he\u2019s forced to work with her on the ranch, he can\u2019t get her out of his sight\u2014or his head. He reminds himself to keep to his rules, especially after he finds out the ranch is under threat of being shut down.<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s clear Avery doesn\u2019t belong here, but they form a tentative truce and make a deal: Avery will help raise funds to save the ranch, and in exchange, Lucas will show her what it really means to be an Indian. It\u2019s purely transactional, absolutely no horsing around\u2026but where\u2019s the fun in that?<\/em> – Berkley<\/p>\n

This title is also available in large print.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Ten Sleep<\/a><\/strong><\/em> by Nicholas Belardes<\/p>\n

Jordan Peele\u2019s Nope meets True Grit in Nicholas Belardes\u2019s Ten Sleep, a supernatural modern-day western about a trio of young people on a 10-day cattle drive that leads them through a canyon haunted by ancient mysteries and savage beasts who existed long before humankind.<\/em><\/p>\n

A young Mexican American woman detects uncanny creatures stalking her on a cattle drive toward a canyon soaked in blood in an unforgettable novel, brilliantly infusing the modern Western with spine-chilling horror . . .<\/em><\/p>\n

When Greta Molina\u2019s old friend Tiller offered her the job, a ten-day cattle drive across the Wyoming prairie from the ranching town of Ten Sleep, it sounded like a well-paid break. Three hundred and twenty cows and calves, two guys her age she\u2019s known since college, and a few long days on an ATV will give her time to sort out the mess in her head. The canyon along the trail has a history, sure, but nature has a tendency toward violence. Greta can accept that, even if it makes her insides squirm.<\/em><\/p>\n

What Greta doesn\u2019t know is the legacy of murder and rot that runs deep into the rocks of this land. As each night passes on the prairie, the trio faces mounting supernatural dangers: a ghost train of the damned, wild animals walking alongside dead ones\u2014and evidence of a gigantic creature in the skies, one that\u2019s supposedly been extinct for eons. And Tiller may be hiding even darker secrets the further they go. Safety is only ten sleeps away, but Greta soon realizes that may be too long for all of them to survive.<\/em><\/p>\n

Nicholas Belardes\u2019s Ten Sleep is a fresh portrayal of the American West for fans of Catriona Ward, Victor LaValle and Jordan Peele\u2019s Nope, by a rising star in horror.<\/em> – Erewhon Books<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Tom’s Crossing<\/a><\/strong><\/em> by Mark Z. Danielewski<\/p>\n

Hard to figure how so much awful horror could\u2019ve started out with just them two horses and not a one yet named\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

While folks still like to focus on the crimes that shocked the small city of Orvop, Utah, back in the fall of 1982, not to mention the trials that followed, far more remember the adventure that took place beyond municipal lines.<\/em><\/p>\n

For sure no one expected the dead to rise, but they did. No one expected the mountain to fall either, but it did. No one expected an act of courage so great, and likewise so appalling, that it still staggers the heart and mind of anyone who knows anything about the Katanogos massif, to say nothing of Pillars Meadow.<\/em><\/p>\n

As one Orvop high school teacher described that extraordinary feat just days before she died, Fer sure no one expected Kalin March to look Old Porch in the eye and tell him: You get what you deserve when you ride with cowards.<\/em> – Pantheon<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Tough Luck<\/a><\/strong><\/em> by Sandra Dallas<\/p>\n

In this homage to True Grit, a young woman makes a perilous journey west in 1863 in search of her gold-mining father.<\/em><\/p>\n

After their mother dies, Haidie Richards and her younger brother, Boots, are put to work in an orphanage. Their father left four years earlier to find a gold mine in Colorado Territory, and since then he\u2019s sent only three letters. Still, Haidie is certain that he is alive, has struck gold, and will soon send for them.<\/em><\/p>\n

But patience is not one of Haidie\u2019s virtues, and soon she and her brother make a break for it. Boots and Haidie, disguised as a boy, embark on a dangerous journey deep into Western territory. Along the way, Haidie learns fast not only how to handle mules, oxen, and greedy men, but also that you are better off in a community. Hers includes a card shark, independent \u201cspinster\u201d sisters, and a very fierce dog. Once she arrives in Colorado and finds out the truth about her father, Haidie will need all her new friends for a get-even plot worthy of The Sting.<\/em><\/p>\n

Filled with vivid period detail, colorful characters, and the irreverent voice of our scrappy heroine, Tough Luck celebrates both the tenacity of youth and the persistence of the heart in the great American West.<\/em> – St. Martin’s Press<\/p>\n

This title is also available in large print.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When looking at the new shelves, I noticed a trend in westerns that are not the traditional gun-slinging westerns that your grandparents read. While hard to explain, I highly recommend that you check out one of the new westerns listed below to see if you like them! As of this[Read more]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,5,1,8],"tags":[11524,11528,11527,10907,10967,11532,5842,11530,11534,7561,11529,10906,11525,11526,11531,11533,773],"class_list":["post-60265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-read-a-likes","category-reference","category-staff-picks","tag-amity","tag-danica-nava","tag-frederic-s-durbin","tag-karen-russell","tag-love-is-a-war-song","tag-mark-z-danielewski","tag-nathan-harris","tag-nicholas-belardes","tag-sandra-dallas","tag-stephen-graham-jones","tag-ten-sleep","tag-the-antidote","tag-the-buffalo-hunter-hunter","tag-the-country-under-heaven","tag-toms-crossing","tag-tough-luck","tag-westerns"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd0CXx-fG1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60265"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60424,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60265\/revisions\/60424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}