Glorious

A Novel of the American West

By: Jeff Guinn

Narrated by: David Carpenter

Cash McLendon has always had an instinct for self-preservation, one that was honed by an impoverished childhood and life with an alcoholic father barely scraping by on the streets of Saint Louis in 1872. He’s always had a knack for finding and capitalizing on the slightest opportunities, choosing the path of financial security over happiness or real friends. He eventually builds himself up from a Saint Louis street urchin to the son-in-law and heir apparent to industrial mogul Rupert Douglass. Though it lacks passion, his life seems securely set: a wife, a career, property, standing.

But when tragedy strikes, all of his plans and his entire future dissolve in an instant. McLendon’s instinct for survival kicks in; he flees Saint Louis, and Douglas assigns his enforcer, an ominous skull-cracker with steel-toed boots, to track him down.

With nothing to lose, McLendon attempts to reconcile with an old flame - a woman he was nearly engaged to but put aside in exchange for the life now in shambles. He heard through the grapevine that she and her father moved their dry-goods store out west, to a speck-on-the-map mining town named Glorious, in the Arizona Territory. There, McLendon tries to win her back, and in the process discovers a new way of life at the edge of the final American frontier. But he can’t outrun his past forever....

©2014 Jeff Guinn (P)2014 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"Since he's already written about Wyatt Earp, Bonnie and Clyde, and Charles Manson (Manson), Jeff Guinn might as well create his own attractive bad boy. He's done so in this first-in-a-trilogy Western.... There's an interesting contemporary feel to this Western. City boy McLendon doesn't know how to ride or shoot or bust heads; what he knows how to do is observe, spy and think on his feet." (U-A Press)

"An affable bit of frontier mythmaking.... Readers may find by the end that, like Cash McLendon, they’ve become inexplicably fond of Glorious and its colorful denizens." (The Washington Post)

"[Guinn] knows how to dig into the past...an absorbing, informative and entertaining tale of life, love, hope and ambition in the American West." (Dallas Morning News)

Fantastic........Its like a movie in your head.

Mr. Guinn. (sorry if miss spelled) this book was so wellwritten. thank you so much. please write more. I have all 4 or 5 of yours there great.

Different for me

I don’t read many westerns. This is my third one. I think the author did a great job of creating the time and place for the reader. The story flowed and was never boring. There is action and excitement. The MC is not much of a hero, but he’s trying. Ultimately, this is a story of underdogs who never quite succeed. So, in that respect the story is underwhelming if not accurate to real life. Maybe subsequent books build to the more satisfying conclusion I was hoping for, but I am not necessarily enamored enough to continue the series.

Awful

One of the most boring mundane plots ever…predictable, and pointless. Would definitely not recommend

Awful

Zane Grey never yammered on like this guy. ZG would have told this story in one-third the words.

Disappointed...

I read this entire novel and enjoyed it immensely, great story, great characters, super narration!!! Then why the 1 star overall rating??? The ending was horrible, leaves you feeling unfulfilled, and leaves you flat!!! Too many unanswered questions, a sequel probably, but I don't appreciate an author who baits you by leaving so many unanswered questions into buying his next book... Sad because this book has great dialogue, and you relate with the characters, good story, but the ending is so bad that I feel I wasted my time... Think twice before you consider this novel...