WILLA Literary Award Finalist in Creative Nonfiction Finalist, Evans Handcart Award In the middle of the Great Depression, Montana native Julia Bennett arrived in New York City with no money and an audacious business plan: to identify and visit easterners who could afford to spend their summers at her brand new dude ranch near Ennis, Montana. Julia, a big-game hunter whom friends described as "a clever shot with both rifle and shotgun," flouted gender conventions to build guest ranches in Montana and Arizona that attracted world-renowned entertainers and artists. Bennett's entrepreneurship, however, was not a new family development. During the Civil War, her widowed grandmother and her seven-year-old daughter--Bennett's mother--set out from Missouri on a ten-month journey with little more than a yoke of oxen, a covered wagon, and the clothes on their backs. They faced countless heartbreaks and obstacles as they struggled to build a new life in the Montana Territory. Burning the Breeze is the story of three generations of women and their intrepid efforts to succeed in the American West. Excerpts from diaries, letters, and scrapbooks, along with rare family photos, help bring their vibrant personalities to life.

On 19 August 1936 Hercules the boxer stands on the quayside at Coruña and watches Fascist soldiers piling up books and setting them alight. With this moment a young carefree group of friends are transformed into a broken generation. Out of this incident during the early months of Spain's tragic civil war, Manuel Rivas weaves a colourful tapestry of stories and unforgettable characters to create a panorama of twentieth-century Spanish history. For it is not only the lives of Hercules the boxer and his friends that are tainted by the unending conflict, but also those of a young washerwoman who sees souls in the clouded river water and the stammering son of a judge who uncovers his father's hidden library. As the singed pages fly away on the breeze, their stories live on in the minds of their readers.

Color illustration on front cover of a group of men on horseback galloping through a desert landscape.

Nothing Left to Burn is a remarkable memoir that looks into the life of a family that has spent years harboring secrets, both dark and volatile. It eloquently tells the story of a son’s relationship with his father, the fire chief and a local hero, and his grandfather, a serial arsonist. When Jay Varner, fresh out of college, returns home to work for the local newspaper, he knows that he will have to deal with the memories of a childhood haunted by a grandfather who was both menacing and comical and by a father who died too young and who never managed to be the father Jay so desperately needed him to be. In digging into the past, he uncovers layers of secrets, lies, and half-truths. It is only when he finally has the truth in hand that he comes to an understanding of the forces that drove his father, and of the fires that for all his efforts his father could never extinguish.

The definitive account of one of the deadliest wildfires in U.S. history, which killed nineteen elite firefighters of the Granite Mountain Hotshots and also inspired the major motion picture Only the Brave. “A tear-jerking classic.”—Outside • Named One of the Best Books of the Year by Men’s Journal On June 28, 2013, a single bolt of lightning sparked an inferno that devoured more than eight thousand acres in northern Arizona. Twenty elite firefighters—the Granite Mountain Hotshots—walked together into the Yarnell Hill Fire, tools in their hands and emergency fire shelters on their hips. Only one of them walked out. An award-winning journalist and former wildland firefighter, Kyle Dickman brings to the story a professional’s understanding of how wildfires ignite, how they spread, and how they are fought. He understands hotshots and their culture: the pain and glory of a rough and vital job, the brotherly bonds born of dangerous work. Drawing on dozens of interviews with officials, families of the fallen, and the lone survivor, he describes in vivid detail what it’s like to stand inside a raging fire—and shows how the increased population and decreased water supply of the American West guarantee that many more young men will step into harm’s way in the coming years. Praise for On the Burning Edge “Dickman weaves a century of fire-management history into the fully realized stories of the men’s lives—the sweat, the adrenaline, the orange glow of fire within their aluminum shelters, and the chewing gum that hotshot Scott Norris left in the shower before telling his girlfriend, Heather, ‘I’ll take care of it later. I promise.’”—Outside “Dickman offers a riveting account of a dangerous occupation and acts of nature most violent—and those who face both down.”—Library Journal

Set in the steamy coastal Alabama town of Sea Breeze, an interconnected group of older teens hook up, break up . . . and much, much more. Preston is one bad boy. And Amanda has harboured a crush on him for forever. When she finally makes her move on him, it does notend well. But still, she can't resist him. Especially now that he seems to be pursuing her, too.No one wants wants them to be together. Not Amanda's brother, Marcus, who is on the verge of his marriage to Low, and definitely not any of Preston's buddies. They know way too much about Preston's dark side. Yet the dangerous attraction is there ... and neither Preston nor Amanda are going to deny it.

In Burning the Bacon, L. Austen Johnson navigates through deeply personal terrain, laying waste to it and watching its flowers regrow in the four sections of the collection: "Gravity," "In Memoriam," "Entropy," and "Parthenogenesis." She explores topics such as chronic illness, love, heartbreak, memory, and growing up with a blend of accessible language and rich metaphor.