Home in the Valley

A collection of some of the best short fiction writing from the most famous Western author of all time.

Louis L’Amour is indisputably the most famous and well-respected writer to ever work in the Western genre. His stories captured life on the frontier at its most captivating and exciting, and with well over two hundred million copies sold of his work, his characters and stories have left an indelible mark on popular culture.

Home in the Valley collects six of L’Amour’s short stories, written early in his career. In the title story, Steve Mehan had accomplished what man had believed to be impossible. He had taken cattle from the home range in Nevada to sell in California in the dead of winter. Now the money from the cattle is on deposit with Dake & Company, but while in Sacramento, California, he learns to his shock that the company has failed and his money is almost surely lost. There is one hope: that news of the closure hasn’t yet reached a branch in faraway Portland, Oregon. The only chance to get the money back will be to beat the steamer boat carrying the news to Portland. To do that, Steve will need a long relay of horses, and he will have to be almost continuously in the saddle.

L’Amour’s best work conjures up a romantic, strangely compelling vision of the American West. Find out for yourself why L’Amour continues to be a household name and, even decades after his death, the gold standard for authentic Western storytelling.

Skyhorse Publishing is proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction that takes place in the old West. Westerns—books about outlaws, sheriffs, chiefs and warriors, cowboys and Indians—are a genre in which we publish regularly. Our list includes international bestselling authors like Zane Gray and Louis L’Amour, and many 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.