Travers Corners, if visited by a dedicated urbanite, would be seen as nothing more than a windblown gas station of a town that would make the middle of nowhere look like Metropolis. It’s a town of 329 beloved residents, from Dolores, who runs the beauty parlor, to Junior McCracken, the worst fisherman to never give up the sport, to Judson C. Clark, boatbuilder and Carrie Creek’s occasional guide. But Travers Corners is more than just a gas station of a town. It’s a destination for fly fishing—a paradise made of the finest trout waters ever seen, with rivers and creeks sweeping past cattle ranches, tall grasses, and off into the timbered mountains. In Scott Waldie’s Return to Travers Corners are stories of small town friendships and fights, of famous fishermen and unlucky anglers, of trout so big they’re practically mythical, and of the ones that got away—in love and on the water. The tales of Travers Corners hearken to a simpler, more enticing world of wild places, good deeds, and the friends made along the way. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction—novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Will Ballard fought for the South, but he's not ready to go home when he walks away from Appomattox. Old wounds still fester and only time will heal them. He joins a wagon train heading West, and finds a ready-made family. When events drive him away, he becomes a cowpuncher, just in time to fight land grabbers and a rancher who figures his land is more important than men's lives. Before he can make up his mind to go home, he's got himself a job building a railroad. All goes well until the carpetbaggers set their sights on it, and once more he's adrift. On the move again, he hires on with a freighter and finds a temporary home on the seat of a wagon. Hard work and friendship finish his healing, and it's finally time for him to go home. Trouble is, those men in their fancy black suits are still grabbing land in the South and West. It's more than Will can take, and he's not shy about saying so. Eventually he fights his way back to Four Corners, only to discover the same land grabbers and carpetbaggers at work, and a pretty girl who thinks highly of him. There's only one thing for Will to do: hold onto his home, keep the land, marry the girl. And it ain't gonna be easy.

Like a well-crafted stage play, Just Passin' Thru delivers one suspenseful scene after another. But in this historic setting — a store on the Appalachian Trail called Mountain Crossings — the characters who show up are no fictional creations. They are the real-life stars of the author’s new life as a backpack-purging, canteen-selling, hostel-running, bandage-taping, lost-child finding, argument-settling, romance-fixing, chili-making man of many faces. Like any good drama, there are the good guys (and gals) and the weirdos, too. Some show up once (and that’s enough), and some appear again and again. Some are friends, and some dangerous. But all are united by two things: the author’s story-capturing talent, and whatever it is that lures them to attempt (or conquer) a 2,200-mile path that climbs and plummets from Georgia to Maine.

Bruce Hastie, a young, naive Scottish engineer, comes to live in a London flat while he works as a graduate apprentice in a turbine factory. It is 1958. He has two contrasting flat-mates, selected by a special agency, a disillusioned actor, Benjamin Garrick, and a rough, crude washing machine salesman, Edward Flunk, also known as Skunk. Bruce starts work at General Turbines Limited in the smoke, grime and heat of the foundry. One lunch-break he finds his chargehand boss, a huge, strong, Yorkshireman nicknamed Heavy, reading and enjoying some Dylan Thomas poetry. This is a paradox that mystifies the class-conscious Bruce whom Heavy brands as an intellectual snob. Heavy expounds on his soapbox that the arts have been kept away from the working class, that they and society at large need saving from rampant materialism and its attendant viciousness by a good dose of the spiritual values that only poetry, art, theatre and classical music can offer. Then follows two chapters that develop the character of Skunk and Benjamin. Skunk, a self-appointed sexual conqueror of women, has the tables turned on him when he encounters an educated, beautiful but unbalanced seductress when called to fix her washing machine that supposedly has electrocuted her dog. Benjamin is sent home sick from rehearsal, accompanied by fellow actor Sally Frinton-Jones. His malaise is psychological for he is disillusioned by the theatre and his performance in it. By this time, Heavy has Bruce believing in his ideas about the need to educate the common masses in the arts. Benjamin, also a convert to Heavy’s “renaissance” through Bruce’s dogmatism, cannot persuade Sally of the practicality of those ideas. Bruce goes into action by piping Beethoven’s 5th Symphony into the motor assembly shop at General Turbines where 300 women work. The music is well received but when his report on allowing the foundryworkers time off to listen to writers, actors and poets is read by the crass managing director, Mr. Crumhorn, Bruce is fired on the spot. Undaunted, Bruce, Benjamin and fifteen members of the arts world are smuggled into the factory and, along with Heavy, begin teaching the foundryworkers the elements and meaning of theatre, music and poetry. At a de-briefing after this first experiment it is deemed a total failure by all except Heavy who urges continuance and patience with what has been started. Bruce runs out of money and needs a job so he buys a taxi and pumps beer in a local pub. By now he is friendly with Sally, and one night, while driving her to rehearsal, they make a detour to track Skunk around Soho. He makes a subterranean disappearance into a strip joint. Bruce and Sally follow but only find Monique of the Louvre doing her erotic show. Bruce, as expected, registers his disgust but follows Monique to the dressing area and there finds Skunk who turns out to be the proprietor of the establishment. Bruce unbends a little and ends up taking Monique, real name Penelope Scragg, back to her seedy flat. As when he first found Heavy reading poetry in the foundry, he is surprised again when Monique plays him her favorite piece of music, Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. Bruce begins to see Penelope with different eyes and he and Heavy take her to a concert at the Royal Festival Hall. She learns of the Renaissance Group’s activities and is highly amused until Bruce wants her to join the group. He wants her and Skunk to soften the degrading aspects of the strip joint by requiring its customers to enter an adjoining room after the performance and receive “spiritual” renewal in the guise of poetry, music and art. Penelope laughs her head off but Skunk smells money in it and gives it a try. Love blooms between Sally and Benjamin, and they decide to get married. Bruce’s relationship with Penelope deepens, and all is going well with the artistic education of

Bollywood actress Sunita Ashoka's reality show Swayamvara Live has ended in bloodshed and disaster. Vikram, Amanjit and Rasita are on the run, accused of the actress murder. Exiled like the heroes of the Ramayana, they are seemingly beset by the same perils, especially when Vikram encounters an unlikely temptress. Then another tragedy, also foretold in the Ramayana, forces Vikram into the open. But there is hope: Amanjit's skills as a warrior are returning, Rasita is beginning to remember her own past lives, and Deepika is awakening to powers undreamt. But the Enemy, Ravindra, has also found allies?the nightmarish Rakshasa army. Memories and legends are coming alive all over India, from the bloodied sands of Ullal and the fortress of Jhansi to secret places in Mumbai, Pushkar and Varanasi. The fight to the finish has begun . . .

Life is just about as good as it gets in Valentine, Oklahoma…. In this funny and poignant sequel to Cold Tea on a Hot Day, Valentine’s own Marilee James is engaged to Tate Holloway, the new editor of the Valentine Voice, a man whose sweet Southern sensibilities and melting kisses have convinced her to take a leap of faith. But marriage is a nerve-racking proposition—especially when she’s got a special-needs son and an abandoned niece to care for. As she stands at life’s crossroads, Marilee needs a push in the right direction. That push, ironically, comes from Stuart James, Marilee’s ex-husband and her son’s father. Gone these two years, he’s come back at the most inopportune time, pushing Marilee to think long and hard about the road she’s taking. But Stuart, with his charm, his talent and his own secrets, is exactly what Marilee’s heart needs to move into the arms of the right man…and into the happiness that’s waiting right around the corner.

A resident of Briarwood Nursing Home, Amelia Sterns Monroe refuses to accept that the best of her life may be behind her. Defying logic or explanation, she finds a way to travel through time back to the people and the place she once loved. She finds herself returning to Rocky Gap. The youngest of three, Amelia grows up adoring her oldest sister, Cecilia. When Cecilia marries and leaves home, Amelia finds herself an unwilling conspirator in her sister Lydia’s evil schemes. After Lydia’s choices result in tragedy, Amelia struggles to find forgiveness for the sister she has never understood. When Elmer Monroe enters Amelia’s life, she finds in him an all-encompassing love that can’t be denied. As her life takes an impossible turn, she is shocked to discover a newfound understanding for Lydia. But, is it too late? Spanning from 1921 until present day, Return to Rocky Gap is the epic tale of a family torn apart by tragedy and brought back together by war, only to find that distance is sometimes the hardest obstacle to overcome.

Each day, Bob Sheasley leaves Lilyfield Farm and heads into the city. And each day, he brings along a basket of eggs for his coworkers at The Philadelphia Inquirer. Depending on the breed of hen, these eggs may be white, green, rose, blue, or as brown as chocolate. And they are all deliciously fresh, a taste of the rural way of life that people have enjoyed for millennia, one in which chickens have played a supporting role for nearly as long. In Home to Roost, Sheasley tells of the intertwined relationship between humans and chickens. He delves into where chickens came from, what their DNA tells us about our kinship, how we've treated our feathered fellow travelers, and the roads we're crossing together. This is a story of agriculture and human migration, of folk medicine and technology, of how we dreamed of the good life, threw it away, and want it back. Modern farming has changed the lives of both bird and man over the past century. But backyard farmers like Sheasley offer hope for a return to the pleasures of locally grown food, as diverse as the chickens he's raised on Lilyfield Farm. With wit and personal insight, Home to Roost examines of how our lives can be changed for the better, with something as simple as a backyard coop.