South Dakota Fiction

Frances Arnsby has only three weeks to learn about romance. That’s all the time she has before the stagecoach whisks her back to Deadwood. Excited about a glowing future as a romance dime novelist, her hopes are dashed when her manuscript fails to connect. She hasn’t lived enough. Her dream will be over before it even starts if she doesn’t add life, love…passion.

In the years after World War II, the bleak yet beautiful plains of South Dakota still embody all the contradictions - the ruggedness and the promise - of the old frontier. This is a place where you can eat strawberries from wild vines, where lightning reveals a boundless horizon, where descendants of white settlers and native Indians continue to collide, and where, for most, there are limited options. René shares a home, a family, and a passion for dance with her older brother, Leon. Yet for all they have in common, their lives are on remarkably different paths.

Eva Arnsby can’t stay indoors, her need to draw the woodland creatures around her home near Lead, South Dakota gets her in a heap of trouble. And none more troublesome than a shadowy stranger who steals her notebook and her spirit. Ranger, Captain George Roth, is suspicious when he finds a small woman in man’s trousers sneaking around in the woods. Determined to discover the woman’s secrets, he takes on an assignment, ready to investigate her under the guise of a harmless town dandy.

On the phone Hugh had said, “I’ve got something you have to see to believe. Get yourself out here.” One year after retiring as a master sergeant in the 75th Rangers, this was Roman Keane’s idea of the perfect way to spend his time: jump on a motorcycle and ride from Georgia to South Dakota to see his old friend, Hugh Early. Hugh had once been Roman’s sniper instructor and was now an internationally respected historian of military arms. Historians, of all people, should know that the past you thought was dead and gone has a way of rising up to finish what it started.

When Frankie and her son need a hero to help pull off their Christmas play, they call on Ryker. Except that Ryker doesn’t leave the house. He can’t stand the way people look at him. Like he’s a monster. But he can’t say no to his late best friend’s wife. And though he tries to stay in the shadows, the beautiful Frankie and her five-year-old son don’t make that easy.

When they were seniors in high school, they made a pact. If they weren’t married by the time they were thirty, they would marry each other. But now Adeline is a professional dancer with a career in the big city. And Colton is trying to build his own business in small town, South Dakota. They live in two different worlds. They can’t possibly keep their promise. It hadn’t made sense back then. It definitely doesn’t make sense twelve years later.

Tucker's mischievous brothers have downloaded a dating app on his phone. He would delete it, but he’s enjoying talking to the mysterious and lovely May. Workaholic Wynona Ghost Bear is rapidly falling for the man on the other end of her chat box. There’s just something refreshing about Wolfgang. Tucker is western South Dakota’s most popular hunting guide. When biologist Wynona Ghost Bear moves into his territory to rescue the western Blake toad from extinction, she wants to close down his hunting season.

The wild places are where no one is looking anymore. Out there on the high plains, among the Sioux reservations and the silent buttes, among the small towns dying and the people with them, you can hear the wind. And on the back of the wind is the sound of an old accordion—tangos—mingling with the lonely thump of a single drum in the nighttime and a far-off warrior’s cry. On the back of the wind is the smell of worn saddle leather and sawdust, of sandalwood, and smoke from ancient ceremonial fires.

The Wright family's homeschooling adventure continues on to South Dakota as their RV hits the road again. The kids wonder what all those motorcycles are doing in the small town of Sturgis. Nadia learns how newspapers are created. Aidan gets to lead the way on a daring round of follow the leader. Prince Pumpkin the Third, their pet turtle, stumbles across something that he probably shouldn't have. Meanwhile, what startling new secrets of the Time Tuner are revealed?

A fort is supposed to keep evil out. But what if evil gets in? Ezekiel and his people only wanted to warn the rest of the country of the sickness. But how do they make the army believe their story when they're still struggling to believe it themselves? Turns out they don't need to do the convincing. The biters will. (This is book 2 of the Ezekiel Cool Weird Western Trilogy.)

Gunner Bridge has never had much of a social life. He’s never even been on a date. His whole life has been working the ranch, and he’s done such a good job of it that now he has to hire on some ranch hands. But Gunner isn’t much of a homemaker, either. These guys expect a clean place to sleep and food on the table.