First you had movies like, Outlaw of Josey Whales, and Posse, and a book called Cole, now you have, A Family of Out Laws. This book is about a black western, in which the family refuses to let anyone take their land. It has a mixture of Western and Southern cowboys combine. From one crooked town's mayor after another, bounty hunters, and outlaws, the killing just continues to grow. Just remember, there were some black cowboys who didn't take any s**t. Their stories just weren't documented, until now. So saddle up and enjoy the book.

A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK * INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * BELLETRIST BOOK CLUB PICK * INDIE NEXT SELECTION * LIBRARY READS SELECTION * AMAZON EDITORS' CHOICE * WASHINGTON POST BEST OF THE YEAR The "terrifying, wise, tender, and thrilling" (R.O. Kwon) adventure story of a fugitive girl, a mysterious gang of robbers, and their dangerous mission to transform the Wild West. In the year of our Lord 1894, I became an outlaw. The day of her wedding, 17 year old Ada's life looks good; she loves her husband, and she loves working as an apprentice to her mother, a respected midwife. But after a year of marriage and no pregnancy, in a town where barren women are routinely hanged as witches, her survival depends on leaving behind everything she knows. She joins up with the notorious Hole in the Wall Gang, a band of outlaws led by a preacher-turned-robber known to all as the Kid. Charismatic, grandiose, and mercurial, the Kid is determined to create a safe haven for outcast women. But to make this dream a reality, the Gang hatches a treacherous plan that may get them all killed. And Ada must decide whether she's willing to risk her life for the possibility of a new kind of future for them all. Featuring an irresistibly no-nonsense, courageous, and determined heroine, Outlawed dusts off the myth of the old West and reignites the glimmering promise of the frontier with an entirely new set of feminist stakes. Anna North has crafted a pulse-racing, page-turning saga about the search for hope in the wake of death, and for truth in a climate of small-mindedness and fear.

Two famous 19th century outlaws from opposite sides of the world are brought to rollicking life in the acclaimed historian’s “marvelous dual biography” (Douglas Brinkley, author of The Wilderness Warrior). The legendary exploits of Billy the Kid and Ned Kelly live on in the public imaginations of their respective countries, the United States and Australia. But the outlaws’ reputations are so mythologized, the truth of their lives has become obscure. In Wanted, Robert M. Utley reveals the true stories and parallel courses of the two notorious contemporaries who lived by the gun, were executed while still in their twenties, and remain compelling figures in the folklore of their homelands. Utley draws sharp portraits of both young men, offering insightful comparisons of their lives and legacies. Billy was a fun-loving sharpshooter who excelled at escape and lived on the run after indictment for his role in the Lincoln Country War. While Ned, raised in the bush by his Irish convict father, was driven by outrage against British colonial authority to steal cattle and sheep, kill three policemen, and rob banks for the benefit of impoverished Irish sympathizers. Recounting their exploits, differences, and shared fates, Utley illuminates the worlds in which they lived on opposite sides of the globe. “Robert M. Utley displays the gifts that have made him a storied interpreter of the nineteenth-century west.”—T. J. Stiles, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The First Tycoon

Billy Smith is abandoned by his mother and loses his father in an accjdrnt on the railroad but with the help from friends he begins working for the railroad and advances from telegrapher to yerminal trainmaster before joining a newly found friend in the oil drilling business.

Sitting tall in the saddle, with a wide-brimmed black hat and twin Colt pistols on his belt, Bass Reeves seemed bigger than life. Outlaws feared him. Law-abiding citizens respected him. As a peace officer, he was cunning and fearless. When a lawbreaker he

Western outlaws terrorized the country during the late 1800s and early 1900s, robbing stagecoaches, banks, trains and merchants. While they were fearsome, some became folk heroes and legends. The killer of Jesse James was vilified as a coward, while the man he killed was worshipped by man even though he had killed several men. Billy the Kid's reputation outgrew his actual deeds. Legend says he killed 21 men in his 21-year life time. The actual number if believed to be five. The west's fastest gun was not an outlaw. He wa an FBI agent called "Jelly" Bryce. He could drop a coin from shoulder height, draw and shoot it before it reached his waist.

Charles Leerhsen brings the notorious Butch Cassidy to vivid life in this surprising and entertaining biography that goes beyond the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid to reveal a more fascinating and complicated man than legend provides. For more than a century the life and death of Butch Cassidy have been the subject of legend, spawning a small industry of mythmakers and a major Hollywood film. But who was Butch Cassidy, really? Charles Leerhsen, bestselling author of Ty Cobb, sorts out facts from folklore and paints a brilliant portrait of the celebrated outlaw of the American West. Born into a Mormon family in Utah, Robert Leroy Parker grew up dirt poor and soon discovered that stealing horses and cattle was a fact of life in a world where small ranchers were being squeezed by banks, railroads, and cattle barons. Sometimes you got caught, sometimes you got lucky. A charismatic and more than capable cowboy—even ranch owners who knew he was a rustler said they would hire him again—he adopted the alias “Butch Cassidy,” and moved on to a new moneymaking endeavor: bank robbery. By all accounts, Butch was a smart and considerate thief, refusing to take anything from customers and insisting that no one be injured during his heists. His “Wild Bunch” gang specialized in clever getaways, stationing horses at various points along their escape route so they could outrun any posse. Eventually Butch and his gang graduated to train robberies, which were more lucrative. But the railroad owners hired the Pinkerton Agency, whose detectives pursued Butch and his gang relentlessly, until he and his then partner Harry Longabaugh (The Sundance Kid) fled to South America, where they replicated the cycle of ranching, rustling, and robbery until they met their end in Bolivia. In Butch Cassidy, Charles Leerhsen shares his fascination with how criminals such as Butch deftly maneuvered between honest work and thievery, battling the corporate interests that were exploiting the settlers, and showing us in vibrant prose the Old West as it really was, in all its promise and heartbreak.

Standoffs, saloons, and sunsets spring to mind when one envisions the rough and tumble early days of the American frontier.

Lily Klasner learned the harsh realities of frontier life at an early age. Born in Texas in 1862, she was only five when her family lost most of their provisions in an Indian raid while trekking to New Mexico; their ranch on the Pecos became a stopover for outlaws; and she assumed leadership of the family at thirteen when her father was murdered. In My Girlhood Among Outlaws, Lily recalls her experiences with Billy the Kid and other desperadoes, and sets the record straight on popular misrepresentations of events. Of particular interest to historians is her preservation of the diary of famous cattleman and family friend John Chisum.