Welcome to Promise, a small town in the heart of Texas where the neighbors are friendly and you might just find love. Lonesome Cowboy Everyone in Promise thinks Savannah Weston is content to stay on the quiet family ranch with her overbearing brother, Grady. Life on the ranch is busy but lonely, yet Savannah has her passions—particularly for the vintage roses she loves to grow. Then she meets a disenchanted cowboy named Laredo Smith. He’s a stranger to town, and doesn’t plan on staying long, but he may just change Savannah’s life…for the better. Texas Two-Step Ellie Frasier has to take over running the feed store in town after her father’s death. Still in mourning, she relies on her friends for comfort. She was always close with her childhood buddy Glen Patterson, but they never shared “those” feelings for each other. However, the folks around town know a good match when they see one, and Ellie and Glen suddenly find themselves being pushed together more and more often. And now her long-standing friendship feels like it’s turning into something else…

Declared Texas State Photographer for 1997, the author celebrates his native state with a collection of some 114 pages of color photographs, along with a thoughtful, accompanying essay by John Graves that captures the essence of Texas. UP.

Carlton Stowers, the two-time Edgar Award winner and New York Times bestselling master of true crime, is back. Scream at the Sky is his masterful chronicle of one man's murderous career, and another man's sworn promise to deliver justice and closure to the people of Texas. Wichita Falls, Texas, was home to a hundred thousand people in the last months of 1984. That winter was harsh, as the normally arid Texas plains gave way to ominous dark clouds that delivered freezing sleet and rain. But a much darker force was looming, and soon the quiet town was besieged by a faceless evil--and its young women were dying because of it. In the next seventeen months five women were found brutally beaten and murdered, their young lives cut short and their bodies left haphazardly where they fell. In the years that followed, grieving families fruitlessly sought answers. A haunted district attorney chased every lead only to meet one dead end after another. And the killer's identity remained unknown to the ravaged townspeople. Then, fourteen years after the killing started, an investigator who had been assigned the cold case brought to it a renewed dedication, and came upon a chance discovery. Searching through the yellowed case files, he caught a minor detail that suggested one more suspect. Faryion Wardrip was an unhappily married family man who drowned his anger in substance abuse and violent fantasies. But for five unfortunate families, the drugs sometimes took over and the fantasies became realities. Investigator John Little followed his instincts and tirelessly ruled out every possibility until he was left with but one conclusion: Faryion Wardrip was the serial killer who had eluded his office for so long. How he tracked down Wardrip and used the legal system to beat the killer at his own game of deception is a remarkable story of justice served.

Imagine: you're blindsided on a dark highway by a half-mile-wide tornado. Or worse: you're aboard a commercial jetliner brought to the ground by a powerful thunderstorm-the deadliest plane crash in Texas history. In Menacing Skies: Texas Weather and Stories of Survival, Dan Henry shares incredible stories of survival from people who have come face-to-face with nature's most violent storms. Dan has covered every type of weather event during his three-decade career as a meteorologist. In this book, he collaborates with other top experts in the field to unravel the mysteries of science that drive our weather. Why do some thunderstorms spawn destructive tornadoes, and others don't? What is "supercharging" hurricanes like Harvey, enabling them to unleash historic flooding? How will climate change affect our weather-and our lives-in the next 100 years? Whether you're an aspiring storm chaser or someone who runs for shelter at the first clap of thunder, Menacing Skies will leave you awed by the power of the human spirit and better prepared for whatever severe weather you encounter.

A collection of Courtney's columns from the Texas Monthly, curing the curious, exorcizing bedevilment, and orienting the disoriented, advising "on such things as: Is it wrong to wear your football team's jersey to church? When out at a dancehall, do you need to stick with the one that brung ya? Is it real Tex-Mex if it's served with a side of black beans? Can one have too many Texas-themed tattoos?"--Amazon.com.

“Atkinson and Jewell invite each of us to reimagine one’s connection to the land while cultivating nature close to home. A must-read for anyone searching for inspired solutions for designing or refining a garden.” —Emily Murphy, founder of Pass the Pistil From windswept deserts to misty seaside hills and verdant valleys, the natural landscapes of the American West offer an astounding variety of climates for gardens. Under Western Skies reveals thirty-six of the most innovative designs—all embracing and celebrating the very soul of the land on which they grow. For the gardeners featured here, nature is the ultimate inspiration rather than something to be dominated, and Under Western Skies shows the strong connection each garden has with its place. Packed with Atkinson’s stunning photographs and illuminated by Jewell’s deep interest in the relationships between people and the spaces they inhabit, Under Western Skies offers page after page of encouraging ingenuity and inventive design for passionate gardeners who call the West home.

Voted the Best Space Book of 2018 by the Space Hipsters The dramatic inside story of the epic search and recovery operation after the Columbia space shuttle disaster. On February 1, 2003, Columbia disintegrated on reentry before the nation’s eyes, and all seven astronauts aboard were lost. Author Mike Leinbach, Launch Director of the space shuttle program at NASA’s John F. Kennedy Space Center was a key leader in the search and recovery effort as NASA, FEMA, the FBI, the US Forest Service, and dozens more federal, state, and local agencies combed an area of rural east Texas the size of Rhode Island for every piece of the shuttle and her crew they could find. Assisted by hundreds of volunteers, it would become the largest ground search operation in US history. This comprehensive account is told in four parts: Parallel Confusion Courage, Compassion, and Commitment Picking Up the Pieces A Bittersweet Victory For the first time, here is the definitive inside story of the Columbia disaster and recovery and the inspiring message it ultimately holds. In the aftermath of tragedy, people and communities came together to help bring home the remains of the crew and nearly 40 percent of shuttle, an effort that was instrumental in piecing together what happened so the shuttle program could return to flight and complete the International Space Station. Bringing Columbia Home shares the deeply personal stories that emerged as NASA employees looked for lost colleagues and searchers overcame immense physical, logistical, and emotional challenges and worked together to accomplish the impossible. Featuring a foreword and epilogue by astronauts Robert Crippen and Eileen Collins, and dedicated to the astronauts and recovery search persons who lost their lives, this is an incredible, compelling narrative about the best of humanity in the darkest of times and about how a failure at the pinnacle of human achievement became a story of cooperation and hope.