Showing results by narrator "Maynard Villers" in All Categories

For Jack Hale the Cumberland country on the borders of Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee meant the way to great riches. As the advance man for British Mining interests, Hale was in the Kentucky hills to buy coal mining rights from the mountain folk. Hale’s chance meeting with a young mountain girl has a dramatic impact upon both their lives, sending each of them onto opposite paths before they converge again much later.

This is the story of the great stampede of gold seekers to Alaska, written from the eyewitness viewpoint of the author. Not just a spectator, the author was among the first gold seekers who took part in the initial mining activities in the northland.

The time: the 1840s. The place: California during the gold rush. As the white settlers begin penetrating the remote mountain canyons, they discover an ancient race, the Tenanken, who date back at least 60,000 years. Some members retain the genetic memories of their distant past, while others project mystical visions of comfort and joy. All flee the coming of the white man, and appear to be doomed to extinction. Only the genius Pegre finds a possible solution: integrate and intermarry with their distant white "cousins", the Hinchai, and form a new entity.

In this sequel to Shanji, Yesui is Mei-Lai-Gong, the empress of light, born with the ability to move both light and mass in and out of the place of creation called the gong-shi-jie. Her brother Mengjai, seemingly normal at birth, conceals a power Yesui has not imagined. Working to save a dying planet, they learn that love can be found in strange places; that in an infinite universe, no matter how many powers you have, there is always someone more powerful; and that death is not an ending but a change....

Kati thought she was Tumatsin, but her real father was Moshuguang, a Searcher, one of those working to bring down the feudal empire on Shanji and establish a progressive society. Ruled by Mandughai, the emerald-eyed empress of a neighboring star, the Searchers are looking for the person who has inherited the power to be a super being. They believe Kati is that person, and with training from Mandughai, Kati's powers exceed her trainer's power.

Mando Killion's world was shattered by Santa Anna's brutal invasion of Texas. Scion of a wealthy ranching dynasty, he saw his father die at the Alamo, his mother and brothers murdered, and his beautiful sister taken hostage by a debauched Mexican General. Mando came of age during the most violent days of Texas history, as a hearty band of patriots led by Sam Houston fought a bloody revolution for freedom from tyranny.

Where do you go when you've gone too far? That's the question Neil Van Ness faces as his carefully constructed life unravels before his eyes. The first blow comes with the discovery of his wife's affair, betraying and devastating both a friendship and a marriage. The second comes from a news report on TV when Neil learns he's the target of a nationwide manhunt by the FBI for the murder of his parents 15 years ago - a crime he didn't commit.

Reuben and Amy Corbin, brother and sister, are left destitute in 1886 when Quantrill's Raiders burn their Missouri farm, kill their father, and ride off with all the livestock and supplies. Reuben swears that somehow, someday, he will find and kill the individual raider he saw gun-down his father. With no means of support, brother and sister decide to try for Oregon. They find work and earn enough money to join up with a wagon train. The wagon train becomes the platform for a continuous array of adventures, hardships and close, new-found relationships.

On their way to Colorado, Ruff and Dixie Ballou drive their horses through New Mexico. Their intention to quietly drive the horses on through goes well until they find themselves inadvertently involved in a shootout with four outlaws who robbed the banks of a small town in New Mexico. An edgy sheriff and angry townspeople get the Ballou’s involved in a situation they would be more happy to do without. Even more so when they are arrested by the sheriff as robbery suspects.

In the wake of disaster, the surviving members of the Ballou family sought a new beginning on the Texas Frontier. A minister and his family become their traveling companions. Tragedy strikes when the minister and his young daughter are attacked by rattlesnakes and severely bitten. Their lives depend on the only medical attention available, that of a Comanche medicine man. And it is up to Ruff to persuade the reluctant Comanches to give them aid.

Ruff Ballou and his sister Dixie journeyed west with trouble at their heels. But luck is on their side in Rum River, New Mexico, where they race one of their champion thoroughbreds to victory. A rich man’s greed pits their good fortune against Ruff's life and they must take up a money-making challenge to capture Blue Bullet, the legendary stallion that no man has yet tamed. But their worst enemy is time. A bounty has been placed on Blue Bullet, dead or alive, and savage killers are out to collect that reward.

The Horseman, is the story of the Ballou family's brave struggle to fulfill a dream. The Ballous were the finest horsemen in the South, a courageous Tennessee family famous for the training and breeding of glorious thoroughbreds. When the Civil War devastated their home and their lives, they headed west into the heart of Indian territory. As horsemen, they triumphed. As a family, they endured. But as pioneers in a new land, they faced unimaginable hardship, danger, and ruthless enemies....

Haunted by the blood and bitterness of the Civil War, Houston Ballou escaped from Tennessee on the proud stallion High Fire, followed by his brother, Ruff; his sister, Dixie; and the last four mares from the Ballou farm, one of them heavy with foal. Threatened with extreme danger from either army, they head west to start a new life. Adding to their peril are deserters that stalk the roads. These men would kill for a few coins, more so for valuable horseflesh.

Chadwick Buford is a young Kentucky boy with the unnatural luck to keep getting complete strangers to take him and raise him for a time. After his foster parents die, Chad is taken in by the Turner family. Young daughter Melissa Turner falls in love with Chadwick. When Chad is separated from the Turners, he's then taken in by Major Buford. Although Chad doesn't know much about his own family past, the Major believes Chad is the descendent of a long lost relative of the man's.

This is the sequel to the Wolf Hunters as Rod, Wabi and Mukoki return for more adventures. In their possession is the secret of a great fortune. Romance, adventure and discovery awaits them as they start on that most thrilling of all trails, the trail of gold. The big silent North, mysterious in its age-old desolation, was just ahead of them. They were about to bury themselves in its secrets, to wrest from it the yellow treasure it guarded. They tingled excitedly at thoughts of encounters in that unknown world inhabited only by the things in the wild.

Here is a story of Alaska, circa 1920. Mary Standish, a hauntingly beautiful, mysterious young woman and Alan Holt, a native of the Tundra, meet aboard the Nome as it steams for Alaska via the Inside Passage. Mary was running from someone or something, back in Seattle where she came aboard. She reveals a part of her secret to Alan and then commits a stunning act that haunts Alan even as he returns to the Tundra. This act bears tremendous consequences for Alan and the entire territory of Alaska which culminates in a blazing gun battle....

Astronauts Jim Parker and Michael Murphy, aboard the space shuttle Charger II, were wrapping up a routine mission. Just prior to re-entry, they encountered a mysterious cloud bank in space and were never heard from again. Two years later, a metal box was unearthed at a construction site in St. Louis. In it was a previously unknown, yet apparently authentic, journal of the historic Lewis and Clark expedition: written by astronaut Jim Parker. Did Parker and Murphy alter history, or save it?

Haunting, majestic, and powerful, the Columbia River flows down from the rugged Rockies, through the deep, forbidden forests, and across the open plain. Along its banks, bold, strong men of ambition and enterprise sought their fortune. It was a time and a place where the fur trade could make you wealthy...or get you killed. Into this land of adventure and treachery came Jared Flynn, a man running from his tragic past.

Hallettsville, Texas was home to ex-Confederate officer Slate Creed. But after taking an oath for the Union he discovered Yankees had taken over his plantation, named him an outlaw when he resisted, and framed him for murder... Now with a signed confession in his hand naming the real murderer, Creed can finally clear his name. With his nephew and sister-in-law, he's headed for Texas. But his trail is fraught with danger...and it won't do Creed much good to gain his reputation if he loses his life in the process.

The Civil War left Clete Slater with three things: a price on his head for a crime he didn't commit, his new assumed name of Slate Creed, and a savage thirst for vengeance. To follow the trail of his brother's killers, he left his family, the girl he intended to marry, and his ravaged Texas hometown behind. The Union Army wants Creed, dead or alive. But even far from Texas in the wide-open gambling dens of New Orleans, the bluecoats are just a hoofbeat behind. With luck, Creed might escape the bloodthirsty bluecoats.