Shane Morgan's world is shattered when his mother is killed in a car accident. His father and hero, a famous rodeo star, drowns his sorrow in booze and soon is just a rodeo clown with a drinking problem. Then the two inherit a small ranch, and Shane looks forward to having a real home, making friends, and getting through a whole school year in the same place. But things don't go well at school or at home. In fact, Shane and his father seem to be growing further and further apart. Will his father ever change? Will things ever be different?

Shane Morgan is delighted when he and his father inherit a ranch and must leave the rodeo circuit, but their relationship continues to take a stormy path.

Still suffering from his mother's death and the subsequent alcoholism and estrangement of his father, a rodeo clown, Shane hopes things will be better when they go to live on a farm in Alberta.

Don’t Fence Me In. When Wyoming cowboy Robert Tanner promised to help out the new owner of the Three Bar C, he didn’t expect to have to teach a city girl schoolteacher how to run a ranch. Worse, Maggie MacLeod was a beautiful feisty redhead with flashing eyes and kissable lips — a woman who could tempt a saint. Tanner was far from a saint. He didn’t do permanent, he didn’t do relationships. The smart thing would be to leave. But a man was only as good as his word. Trouble was, the longer he stayed, the more Maggie got under his skin…

Scout McBride was born into ranching life in the West Texas desert outside El Paso. He learned to ride a horse almost before he could walk, grew up communicating with animals around the harsh land, and spoke Spanish with his first friend, a boy from Mexico. It was a tough environment for one so young and as Scout follows a rugged path to becoming a man, he knows that to emulate the men he admires, he must keep one thing in mind: Cowboys don't cry.

"Hell-bent on Americanization, Mrs. Kantavski had named her son Clark and changed his last name to Kent. In Brooklyn in 1937, this had not seemd like a bad idea: but when, a year later, the first Superman adventure appeared, the fate of the anti-hero of this hilarious picaresque was determined."--Goodreads.

In Cowboys Don't Cry, Shane and dad finally settled in to a new life on a ranch in Deer Valley, Alberta. They'd been through some rough times after Shane's mother died in a car accident and his father was drinking too much. But all that was behind them and they were getting along fine together. Or so Shane thought. Now, in Cowboys Don't Quit, his dad is a day late delivering some bulls to a ranch in Bozeman, Montana, and Shane is a little worried. Then it's two days. When he gets back from his last day of school and his dad's still not back, Shane decides that he just can't wait around. He's going to Montana to find him. But crossing an international border and driving hundreds of miles isn't easy when you're fifteen, with no driver's license and little money, in a bald-tired old truck. With everything against him -- including both sides of the law -- Shane is determined to find his dad, before it's too late.

"The wealthiest of enemies may seduce the ranch right out from under her! Cassidy Morgan wasn't raised a crybaby. So when her father dies and leaves the family ranch vulnerable to takeover by an Okie gazillionaire with a grudge, she doesn't shed a tear--she fights back. But Chance Barron, the son of said gazillionaire, is a too-sexy adversary. In fact, it isn't until Cassidy falls head over heels for the sexy cowboy-hat-wearing attorney that she even finds out he's the enemy. Now she needs a plucky plan to save her birthright. But Chance has another trick up his sleeve, putting family loyalties--and passion--to the ultimate test."-- From back cover.

When did we come to believe the best thing you can do with death is ride off from it? In Cowboys Are Not Supposed to Cry, Mark W. Schutter tells his story of living a life with grief that began in his midtwenties. The death of his young wife left him alone, and although life was tough, he vowed to show the world that he was tougher. Remarrying and having a daughter, to onlookers, from the outside, life seemed happy again, until in an anguished night of prayer, Mark heard the words that to be the husband and father he wanted to be, he must: reconcile the past embrace the present redeem the future Cowboys Are Not Supposed to Cry is a story that will challenge you with questions that often have no answers about death, life, love, and the way we think about grief. In this memoir of love, loss, grief, and healing, Mark shares his experiences, trying to be who he thought everyone expected him to be. This account, written from the unique perspective of a man, questions what society deems acceptable behavior for grieving men and their healing. This journey is one we all must face, full of deep love, painful loss, and the healing of the soul. Mark pulls back the curtain to show how death is only the beginning. You will carry your grief; the joys and sorrows occupy the same space because healing is never perfect, and that is okay because there is always hope. Grief is not something you just get over, and even the toughest cowboys may sometimes cry.

L.J. Davis’s 1971 novel, A Meaningful Life, is a blistering black comedy about the American quest for redemption through real estate and a gritty picture of New York City in collapse. Just out of college, Lowell Lake, the Western-born hero of Davis’s novel, heads to New York, where he plans to make it big as a writer. Instead he finds a job as a technical editor, at which he toils away while passion leaks out of his marriage to a nice Jewish girl. Then Lowell discovers a beautiful crumbling mansion in a crime-ridden section of Brooklyn, and against all advice, not to mention his wife’s will, sinks his every penny into buying it. He quits his job, moves in, and spends day and night on demolition and construction. At last he has a mission: he will dig up the lost history of his house; he will restore it to its past grandeur. He will make good on everything that’s gone wrong with his life, and he will even murder to do it.