Beauty and the "Boston Beast" Infamous Boston businessman Griffin Turner may have a reputation for being thoroughly ruthless, but underneath it all he hides a painful past. He manages to keep the world at bay until he comes up against the smart, sassy Olivia Mouton. Morrow Creek's resident beauty Olivia is determined to stand up to Griffin—no matter how notorious the stories that precede him! But when he reveals a side that no one else has seen before, she has to reconsider everything she's ever heard…. "Plumley returns with a new novel in her Morrow Creek series: a western version of Beauty and the Beast. Opposites attract in this funny, loving battle of the sexes with strong characters and lots of witty banter. Readers are in for a sizzling treat." --Romantic Times (4 stars)

Often times the smaller the man, the harder the punch--this adage was true in the case of diminutive Luke Short, whose brief span of years played out in the Wild West. His adventures began as a teenage cowboy who followed the trail from Texas to the Kansas railheads. He then served as a scout for the U.S. Army during the Indian wars and, finally, he perfected his skills as a gambler in locations that included Leadville, Tombstone, Dodge City, and Fort Worth. In 1883, in what became known as the "Dodge City War," he banded together with Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and others to protect his ownership interests in the Long Branch Saloon--an event commemorated by the famous "Dodge City Peace Commission" photograph. The irony is that Luke Short is best remembered for being the winning gunfighter in two of the most celebrated showdowns in Old West history: the shootout with Charlie Storms in Tombstone, Arizona, and the showdown against Jim Courtright in Fort Worth, Texas. He would have hated that. During his lifetime, Luke Short became one of the best known sporting men in the United States, and one of the wealthiest. He had been a partner in the Long Branch Saloon in Dodge City, as well as the White Elephant in Fort Worth. He became friends with other wealthy sporting men, such as William H. Harris, Jake Johnson, and Bat Masterson, who helped broaden his gaming interests to include thoroughbred horse racing and boxing. Before he died he would become a familiar figure in Chicago, Memphis, New Orleans, and Saratoga Springs, where he raced his string of horses. He traveled with other wealthy sporting men in private railroad cars to attend heavyweight championship fights. Luke Short was always a little man dealing in big games. He married the beautiful Hattie Buck, who could turns heads at all the top resorts they visited as man and wife. Jack DeMattos and Chuck Parsons have researched deeply into all records to produce the first serious biography of Luke Short, revealing in full the epitome of a sporting man of the Wild West.

This collection of short, action-filled stories of the Old West’s most egregiously badly behaved female outlaws, gamblers, soiled-doves, and other wicked women by offers a glimpse into Western Women’s experience that's less sunbonnets and more six-shooters. Pulling together stories of ladies caught in the acts of mayhem, distraction, murder, and highway robbery, it will include famous names like Belle Starr and Big Nose Kate, as well as lesser known characters.

Laws and cultural norms militated against interracial sex in Virginia before the Civil War, and yet it was ubiquitous in cities, towns, and plantation communities throughout the state. In Notorious in the Neighborhood, Joshua Rothman examines the full spectrum of interracial sexual relationships under slavery--from Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings, and the intertwined interracial families of Monticello and Charlottesville to commercial sex in Richmond, the routinized sexual exploitation of enslaved women, and adultery across the color line. He explores the complex considerations of legal and judicial authorities who handled cases involving illicit sex and describes how the customary toleration of sex across the color line both supported and undermined racism and slavery in the early national and antebellum South. White Virginians allowed for an astonishing degree of flexibility and fluidity within a seemingly rigid system of race and interracial relations, Rothman argues, and the relationship between law and custom regarding racial intermixture was always shifting. As a consequence, even as whites never questioned their own racial supremacy, the meaning and significance of racial boundaries, racial hierarchy, and ultimately of race itself always stood on unstable ground--a reality that whites understood and about which they demonstrated increasing anxiety as the nation's sectional crisis intensified.

Boozy and boisterous. The Georges – the communities of South Fort George and Fort George that ultimately became Prince George – acquired a seedy reputation for a century, at times branded the dubious title of Canada’s “most dangerous city.” Is Prince George really such a bad lad? The Notorious Georges explores how the pursuit of respectability collided with caricatures of a riotous settlement frontier in its early years. Anxious about being marginalized by the provincial government and venture capitalists, municipal leaders blamed Indigenous and mixed-heritage people, non-preferred immigrants, and transient labourers for local crime. Jonathan Swainger combs through police and legal records, government publications, and media commentary to demonstrate that the disorder was not so different from the rest of the province – and “respectable” white residents were often to blame. This lively account tells us about more than a particular community’s identity. It also sheds light on small-town disaffection in modern Canada.

A True West magazine Best Book of 2021, a nominee for the MPIBA Annual Reading the West Book Award, and a Top Pick in the Annual Southwest Books of the Year by Pima County Public Library “[A] true-life adventure saga about the female outlaw who robbed a stagecoach at gunpoint in Arizona in 1899.” –New York Times Book Review The little-known story of Pearl Hart, the most famous female bandit in the American West. On May 30, 1899, history was made when Pearl Hart, disguised as a man, held up a stagecoach in Arizona and robbed the passengers at gunpoint. A manhunt ensued as word of her heist spread, and Pearl Hart went on to become a media sensation and the most notorious female outlaw on the Western frontier. Her early life, family and fate after her later release from prison have long remained a mystery to scholars and historians—until now. Drawing on groundbreaking research into territorial records and genealogical data, ’s is the first book to uncover the enigma of Pearl Hart. Hailed by many as “The Bandit Queen,” her epic life of crime and legacy as a female trailblazer provide a crucial lens into the lives of the rare women who made their mark in the American West.

New, revised second edition! Since A Guide to the Notorious Bars of Alaska was first published in 2014, eight of the bars that were described in the first edition have closed their doors forever. The revised second edition includes five additional bars that meet the criteria. Also added to the second edition are regional maps, and more historic photos and advertisements. The Lower 48 have created myths and legends about things Alaskan: Things in Alaska are bigger, colder, wilder, fiercer, more independent, more rugged, more resourceful, to name just a few of the qualities that surround the Alaska myth. However, the one that says Alaskan bars stand head and shoulders above bars anywhere else just might be true. When author Doug Vandegraft moved to Alaska after graduating college in 1983, he found himself in the wild-west-style bar scene in Anchorage. Nearly two decades later, he officially began conducting research on Alaskan bars that he found as unique as everyone believed. A Guide to the Notorious Bars of Alaska details the rich history and atmosphere of remarkable, one-of-a-kind Alaskan bars, many of which have been around since the end of Prohibition in 1933, and have become legendary in their communities and beyond as places to socialize, meet friends, come in from the cold, and sometimes as community centers or even as churches. Despite stricter laws regarding alcohol sale and consumption, Alaska's bars remain notorious in many ways.