Fleeing a shameful past, seventeen-year-old Ned Thorne joins the U.S. Army and, in 1871, is sent to the dangerous Arizona territories, where he joins his captain and a ragtag troop in the search for a missing woman supposedly kidnapped by the Apache.

In this literary debut, Durham recounts the adventures and trials of a black pioneer family in the late 1870s. At the center of the story is Gabriel, a young man who moves reluctantly from the urban North with his mother and younger brother to join his stepfather, a homesteader in Kansas. When he runs away to become a cowboy, his search for excitement brings trouble and danger.

"Eighteen-year-old Robert Weekes is a practitioner of empirical philosophy-an arcane, female-dominated branch of science used to summon the wind, shape clouds of smoke, heal the injured, and even fly. Though he dreams of fighting in the Great War as the first male in the elite US Sigilry Corps Rescue and Evacuation Service-a team of flying medics-Robert is resigned to mixing batches of philosophical chemicals and keeping the books for the family business...

Gabriel Clarke is mysteriously drawn to The River, a ribbon of frothy white water carving its way through steep canyons high in the Colorado Rockies. The rushing waters beckon him to experience freedom and adventure. But the memory of the terrible event he witnessed on The River when he was just five years old holds him back. Chains of fear and resentment imprison Gabriel, keeping him from discovering the treasures of The River and taking hold...

Zack Dylan dreams of singing on the biggest stages' for the biggest crowds' and hell do whatever it takes to make it come true. But Zack also made a promise to his college sweetheart when he left Kentucky to compete on the TV show Fifteen Minutes: Nothing would change him or his faith in God. But as his star rises on the show' Zack is asked to compromise and quiet his beliefs. Can a former winner warn Zack about the real price of fame?

"Benny Catspaw's perpetually sunny disposition is tested when he loses his job, his reputation, his fiancée, and his favorite chair. He's not paranoid. Someone is out to get him. He just doesn't know who or why. Then Benny receives an inheritance from an uncle he's never heard of: a giant crate and a video message. All will be well in time. How strange - though it's a blessing, his uncle promises. Stranger yet is what's inside the crate. He's a seven-foot-tall...

Sebastian Prendergast lives in a geodesic dome with his eccentric grandmother, who homeschools him in the teachings of futurist philosopher R. Buckminster Fuller. But when his grandmother has a stroke, Sebastian is forced to leave the dome and make his own way in town.

What impact can American history have on the life of the vulnerable individual? It is 1951 in America, the second year of the Korean War. A studious, law-abiding, intense youngster from Newark, New Jersey, Marcus Messner, is beginning his sophomore year on the pastoral, conservative campus of Ohio's Winesburg College. And why is he there and not at the local college in Newark where he originally enrolled? Because his father, the sturdy, hard-working...

It is the summer of 1967 and Leo Suther is about to turn eighteen. This is the summer that everyone has something to teach Leo. His father warns him that "life can turn on a dime." Allie, his girlfriend, wants to teach him about love. Her father, the local communist and civil rights organizer, lectures him on politics and carpentry. And Ryder, a family friend, wants to show Leo the magic of the harmonica--harp of the blues. However, when Leo's life...

From the award-winning author of "One Thousand White Women" comes a novel in the tradition of "Little Big Man," tracing one man's search for adventures and the wild Apache girl who invites him into her