Texas Novels by Charles Russell
Price range: $17.95 through $19.95
Charles Russell, an award-winning author, has written 11 books. Charles has developed quite a following with his ranch-oriented, upbeat family novels. Before concentrating fulltime on writing, Charles was a teacher, football coach, principal and superintendent before retiring to write. He and his wife Patricia live in Potosi, near Abilene Texas. All books are autographed.
Russell’s books include:
- A New Beginning: The most recent of Charles’ books, the story revolves around an endearing ranch couple early and late in life.Part 1 is set in Lincoln County, New Mexico, in 1879 during the Lincoln County war, involving renowned rancher John Chisum and outlaw Billy the Kid. Part 2 takes place in 1929, when the Great Depression hits the New York stock market and reverberates all the way to a ranch in Texas. And the ranch couple’s trusted helper, whom they consider virtually a member of the family, has quite a mysterious story of his own.Paperback, 398 pages.
- The Gathering Storm: another uplifting family drama.The story lines include:Emma, who has just graduated from high school after working to support her family, has hopes to attend college. Her boyfriend has dropped her and now she must work to care for her two younger sisters. When will it be enough?
Carter turned down an offer to play college football, hoping for a rodeo scholarship. His father refuses to pay for the cost of college and Carter begins work in the oilfield. Wrong decisions follow.
George suffered a severe injury years ago and has been unable to support his family. His wife is angry, and George is depressed until he attends a Bible class.
Paperback, 384 pages.
- A Silver Lining in Every Cloud: Grace Ranker experiences the worst of tragedies and faces many obstacles during a slow and painful recovery. She discovers the challenges that a woman confronts in a man’s sport in the late 1960s but receives support from another source that enables her to retain hope for what seems a dismal future.Luke Ranker is in Vietnam when he learns of his dad’s sudden death. He returns to Texas, suffering from the horror and death he has viewed the last two years. He had been a platoon leader guiding two dozen marines and had lost five of them in combat. The guilt over these five, especially a boy from Louisiana, haunts him and alters his outlook on life. Luke left home a boy who always smiled and joked and returned a young man who was miserable and angry about a war that no one seemed to understand.Jimmie Lyn Waddell was twenty-three years old and was finally about to marry. She had found her dream guy who was taller than her six feet and thirty years old. She had always been obsessed with her height and had a poor self-image of herself before meeting Drake Davis who was six feet five inches. He was everything and more than she had ever imagined. They had already set a marriage date and everything seemed to be perfect until . . .
428 pages, paperback.
- A Cloudless Sky: A sequel to A Silver Lining in Every Cloud.Grace Ranker, whose husband died a year earlier, returns to Ruidoso and makes a decision that proves to be devastating to her and puts her entire family at risk.Luke Ranker has returned home and is recovering from memories of Vietnam. He goes to Mexico on a mission that puts his life in danger, and would seem to be impossible to anyone but an ex-Marine. Jimmie Lynn Waddell has married Luke, and faces heartache and challenges.
A grandmother who cannot get over the loss of her husband, a young man who knows no fear and a lady who has suffered from a low self-image come together in a story set in the Texas Panhandle — bringing out the best in each.
370 pages, paperback. Fiction.
- When the Cactus Blooms: The story revolves around a dysfunctional family, a boy who has never been loved, a determined grandmother, and a high school principal. They come together in a novel which will tug at your heartstrings at times but leave you feeling that life is full of goodness.Paperback, 416 pages.
- My Country, God’s Country: A sequel to When the Cactus Blooms.This book focuses on ranch woman/community leader Luta Sager and her ailing husband, Gavin, as they try to hold on to the ranch that has been in her family for a hundred years.Their grandson, Eric, has grown up and become a fine young man, but now he faces new challenges in his love life and career choices. Meanwhile, school superintendent Frank Mendenhall has to confront an upheaval in his own family while dealing with pressing school concerns.
Paperback, 414 pages.
- Coming Home: a stand-alone novel set in 1953, featuring two young people in a small West Texas town.The novel is 384 pages, and tells the story of Sam Colter, a former high school football star who has returned from the Korean War; Mattie Quentin, a senior basketball player; and Mattie’s mother Gladys, who, along with her daughter, is tormented by her husband’s alcoholic rages.“Coming Home” is a positive story about good people facing imposing challenges and hardships. Paperback.
- A 4-novel series: A Year to Remember, Making Memories, Lasting Memories and Faith and a Fast Horse.These four novels, Charles Russell’s first, feature Bo and Lexie Skinner and their ranching/rodeo family in New Mexico. Russell relates the joys and struggles of the Skinner family through four generations in the series. Russell says he tries “to make the characters seem real by portraying their strengths as well as imperfections,” but in the end, “the stories have a happy ending. Life is too short and too difficult to have it any other way.”Paperback.
