Friday, May 18, 2018

Friday Freebie: Montana Bundle (Come West and See by Maxim Loskutoff, Arbuckle by Russell Rowland, The Weight of an Infinite Sky by Carrie La Seur, The Bluebird Run by Greg Keeler)


Congratulations to Shannon Feagans, winner of last week’s Friday Freebie: Daphne by Will Boast.

This week’s contest is for a stack of books set in my beloved state of Montana. One lucky reader will copies of the following books: Come West and See by Maxim Loskutoff (whose cover is already in the running for one of my favorites of 2018), Arbuckle by Russell Rowland, The Weight of an Infinite Sky by Carrie La Seur, and The Bluebird Run by Greg Keeler. Keep scrolling for more information about the books and how to enter the contest...


In an isolated region of Idaho, Montana, and eastern Oregon known as the Redoubt, an armed occupation of a wildlife refuge is escalating into civil war. Against this backdrop, twelve stories of ordinary lives explore the loneliness, fragility, and heartbreak inherent to love. Families feel the far-reaching shockwaves of displacement and division. A mother makes a hard choice for her sons when their father goes to lead a standoff with the federal government. An unemployed carpenter joins a militia after his wife leaves him and the first airstrikes raze the streets of his hometown. A former soldier raises the daughter of a dead comrade in a bunker beneath an abandoned farm. Ranging from the cities to the small towns of the West, and imbued with its own brand of radical empathy, Loskutoff’s fiction is both timely and timeless. Come West and See surges with rage, longing, and fear, and offers startling insights into the wounds of the American people.



When Catherine Boland meets a shy young ranch hand at the bank where she works, she has no idea that he just took part in a recent vigilante hanging that she has been very outspoken about. And although George Arbuckle was not a willing participant in that hanging, he worries that once Catherine learns about his participation, he will lose her for good. This is just the first of the challenges facing this young couple in late 19th century Montana. Arbuckle, the third book in a trilogy about a ranch family in southeastern Montana, also takes on issues of rape, abortion, and the difficulty of developing a happy life in the early homesteader days.



In The Weight of an Infinite Sky, the critically acclaimed author of The Home Place explores the heart and mystery of Big Sky Country in this evocative and atmospheric novel of family, home, love, and responsibility inspired by William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The only son of a cattle rancher, Anthony Fry chafed against the expectation that he would take over the business that had belonged to his family for generations. While his ancestors planted deep roots in the unforgiving Montana soil, Anthony wanted nothing more than to leave Billings for the excitement, sophistication, and culture of city life. After college he fled to New York, hoping to turn his lifelong love of the theater into a career. But New York wasn’t the dream Anthony thought it would be. Now, with the unexpected death of his father, Anthony suddenly finds himself back in the place he swore he’d left behind. While the years have transformed the artistic dreamer, they’ve also changed Billings. His uncle Neal, always the black sheep of the Fry family, has become alarmingly close with Anthony’s mother, and a predatory mining company covets the Fry land. Anthony has always wanted out of Montana, away from his father’s suffocating expectations. Yet now that he may be freed from the burden of family legacy, he’s forced to ask himself what he truly finds important: answers that will ultimately decide his fate.


The Bluebird Run is a monumental collection of 180 new sonnets by Montana poet, memoirist, artist and musician Greg Keeler. Ranging from humorous flights to poignant meditations on loss, love, aging and the fate of humanity in the face of looming environmental and social crises, the poems showcase a highly lauded writer at the peak of his abilities. “If these sonnets were trout steams, they’d be full of rainbows and cutthroats alike.” (William Pitt Root)

If you’d like a chance at winning the big bundle of Montana books, simply email your name and mailing address to


Put FRIDAY FREEBIE in the e-mail subject line. Please include your mailing address in the body of the e-mail. One entry per person, please. Despite its name, the Friday Freebie remains open to entries until midnight on May 24 at which time I’ll draw the winning name. I’ll announce the lucky reader on May 25. If you’d like to join the mailing list for the once-a-week newsletter, simply add the words “Sign me up for the newsletter” in the body of your email. Your email address and other personal information will never be sold or given to a third party (except in those instances where the publisher requires a mailing address for sending Friday Freebie winners copies of the book).

Want to double your odds of winning? Get an extra entry in the contest by posting a link to this webpage on your blog, your Facebook wall or by tweeting it on Twitter. Once you’ve done any of those things, send me an additional e-mail saying “I’ve shared” and I’ll put your name in the hat twice.


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