Oftentimes our focus is on the struggle we face fighting against temptations, seductive spirits that call us into sinful activity. But it is not until we have a committed and determined attitude toward fulfilling to trust God that we embrace the great challenges of faith. Beat Away the Buzzards speaks to the reality that we face many challenges when striving to walk in obedience to God. As the father of the faithful, Abraham leaves a great inheritance for his children of faith to follow. As the fowls begin to devour the sacrifice, he offers in obedience to God. He doesn't sit by and allow it to happen but begin to fight for his blessing. This title of Beat Away the Buzzards has lifted my faith as I face many challenges in life. In particular in 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated the city of New Orleans where I have pastored for since 1991. Our church building was totally destroyed, yet the church family is committed in rebuilding and minister to the hearts of people in this community. We have been beating away buzzards of depression, hopeless, discouragement among others, yet we fight on. (All proceeds from this book will be donated to the Jerusalem Church family, who is still building their edifice after the destruction of Hurricane Katrina that happened in 2005 in New Orleans, Louisiana.)

A page-turning epic about the making of a borderland crime family, Country of the Bad Wolfes will appeal both to aficionados of family sagas and to fans of hard-knuckled crime novels by the likes of Donald Pollack, Elmore Leonard, James Lee Burke and James Ellroy. Basing the novel partly on his own ancestors, Blake presents the story of the Wolfe family - spanning three generations, centring on two sets of identical twins and the women they love, and ranging from New England to the heart of Mexico before arriving at its powerful climax at the Rio Grande. Begat by an Irish-English pirate in New Hampshire in 1828, the Wolfe family follows its manifest destiny into war-torn Mexico. There, through the connection of a mysterious American named Edward Little, their fortunes intertwine with those of Porfirio Díaz, who will rule the country for more than thirty years before his overthrow by the Revolution of 1910. In the course of those tumultuous chapters in American and Mexican history, as Díaz grows in power, the Wolfes grow rich and forge a violent history of their own, spawning a fearsome legacy that will pursue them to a climactic reckoning at the Río Grande.

In this western series opener by a USA Today–bestselling author, a gunslinger who’s lost everything fights to protect a mining town from bandits. THE GREATEST WESTERN WRITER OF THE 21ST CENTURY The bestselling novels of William W. Johnstone’s Last Gunfighter series rank among the most boldly authentic portrayals of the American West and the indomitable men and women who carved out a place there. Now, relive how the legend began with this first chapter in the ground-breaking saga of warriors and outlaws, lawmen and adventurers, and innocents in need of a hero. The Drifter Once, Frank Morgan had a wife and a future on the land—until a rich man with a grudge drove him out of Colorado. Since then, Morgan’s taken up the one skill that always came easy—gunfighting—and drifted to a mining town in the New Mexico Territory. But there’s nothing easy about two vicious gangs descending on the town and threatening to wreak havoc. With his reputation preceding him, Morgan is elected to stand in the outlaws’ way. And with nothing left to lose, he’s the last man who will ever back down…

For fans of Cold Mountain and The Invention of Wings comes “a magnificent, immersive, breathtaking work of historical fiction” (Jennifer Chiaverini, New York Times bestselling author) that follows the epic journey of a slave-turned-Comanche warrior who travels from the brutality of a New Orleans sugar cane plantation to the indomitable frontier of untamed Texas, searching not only for the woman he loves but also for his own identity. I have been to hangings before, but never my own. Sitting in a jail cell on the eve of his hanging, April 1, 1875, freedman Persimmon “Persy” Wilson wants to leave a record of the truth—his truth. He may be guilty, but not of what he stands accused: the kidnapping and rape of his former master’s wife. In 1860, Persy had been sold to Sweetmore, a Louisiana sugar plantation, alongside a striking house slave named Chloe. Their deep and instant connection fueled a love affair and inspired plans to escape their owner, Master Wilson, who claimed Chloe as his concubine. But on the eve of the Union Army’s attack on New Orleans, Wilson shot Persy, leaving him for dead, and fled with Chloe and his other slaves to Texas. So began Persy’s journey across the frontier, determined to reunite with his lost love. Along the way, the Comanche captured him and his only chance of survival was to prove himself capable of becoming a warrior. His odyssey of warfare, heartbreak, unlikely friendships, and newfound family would change the very core of his identity and teach him the meaning and the price of freedom. From the author of the New York Times Notable Book Life Without Water, The Life and Times of Persimmon Wilson is a sweeping love story that “is as deeply moving and exciting an American saga as has ever been penned” (Lee Smith, author of Dimestore).

JOHNSTONE COUNTRY. FAMILY FIRST. EVERYBODY ELSE DIES. Relive the legends of the American West as only William W. and J.A. Johnstone can tell it in this ground-breaking saga of warriors and outlaws, lawmen and adventurers, and innocents in need of a hero. FRANK MORGAN, THE LAST GUNFIGHTER: THE DRIFTER Driven out of Colorado by a rich man with a grudge, Frank Morgan’s taken up the one skill that always came easy—gunfighting. Elected to stand in the way of dueling gangs in New Mexico Territory, and with nothing to lose, Morgan’s the last man who will ever back down . . . CONRAD BROWNING, THE LONER When Conrad Browning's wife disappears in the untamed frontier, Conrad finds himself assuming the identity of his famous gunslinging father, Frank Morgan, to find her. So he fakes his own death and starts calling himself the Loner, becoming the deadliest gunfighter this side of his own father . . .

While in the Mississippi State Archives tracking down Abbott Ferriss's beautiful photographic portraits of musicians from 1939, author Harry Bolick discovered, to his amazement, a treasure trove of earlier fiddle tunes in manuscript form. Since then he has worked to understand how this collection came to exist and be set aside. With Stephen T. Austin, Bolick has transcribed the subsequent 1939 audio recordings. Mississippi Fiddle Tunes and Songs from the 1930s presents the history of the collecting work, with over three hundred of the tunes and songs and a beautiful selection of period photographs. In the summer of 1936, over one hundred fiddle tunes, many of them unique, along with thousands of songs, were collected and notated throughout a large part of Mississippi. Roughly 130 novice field workers captured beautiful tunes and tantalizing fragments. As a body of work, it is an unparalleled and fascinating snapshot of vernacular music as heard in Mississippi in the early part of the recorded era. However, this music was unpublished and forgotten. In 1939, building on the contacts made three years earlier, Herbert Halpert led one of the last and best executed of the WPA folklore projects which recorded audio performances in Mississippi. Some, but not all, of those distinctive fiddle tune recordings have been published. Additionally, through cassette tape copies passed hand to hand, some of these distinctive tunes have regained currency and popularity among contemporary fiddlers. In Mississippi Fiddle Tunes and Songs from the 1930s, this great music is at last widely available. Selected tunes in this book are available from Document Records. Get Harry Bolick's CD with 22 tunes from the book, more information, a video, and free downloads of the sound files at www.mississippifiddle.com.

Recently fired from her position as a public school teacher in Ohio, Zenobia yearns to go back to her family's homeland of Liberia and open a women's clinic. As she encounters the conditions that grew out of Liberia's class division and oppression, what will she discover?

A mother of nine on the Oklahoma frontier looks into a drunk neighbor’s death in “a tale full of wit, humor, sorrow and, more important, the truth” (Tony Hillerman, New York Times–bestselling author of the Leaphorn and Chee series). Alafair Tucker is a strong woman, the core of family life on a farm where the back-breaking work and daily logistics of caring for her husband, Shaw, and their nine children—and being neighborly as well—require hard muscle and a clear head. She’s also a woman of strong opinions, and it is her opinion that Harley Day is a drunkard and a reprobate. So, when Harley’s body is found frozen in a snowdrift one January day in 1912, she isn’t surprised that his long-suffering family, while not actually celebrating, isn’t much grieving. When Alafair helps Harley’s wife prepare the body for burial, she discovers that his demise was anything but natural—there’s a bullet lodged behind his ear. Alafair is concerned when she hears that Harley’s son, John Lee, is the prime suspect in his father’s murder—especially since her own seventeen-year-old daughter, Phoebe, is in love with the boy. At first, Alafair’s only fear is that Phoebe is in for a broken heart. But as she begins to unravel the events that led to Harley’s death, she discovers that Phoebe might be more than just John Lee’s sweetheart—she may be his accomplice. . . . “A sharp and suspenseful first novel.” ―Chicago Tribune “A very sympathetic protagonist . . . the author’s depiction of time and place is so vivid that readers will swear they are smelling the brisk Oklahoma air and feeling the dirt under their feet.” —Booklist “A book to savor, lyrical, authentic, and heartwarming.” ―Carolyn Hart, award-winning author of Resort to Murder “Should please even the most demanding fans of historicals with its authentic situations, fully drawn characters, and clever plotting.” ―Library Journal Includes an introduction by the author