Indians of North America book series in reading order

by Thomas Perry

by James D. Doss

by Lynne Reid Banks

by James Fenimore Cooper

by William Kent Krueger

Cassie Edwards wrote historical romance set on the American frontier. Her 117 catalogued titles open with four books in 1982, Rapture's Rendezvous among them, and are organised into long runs: Savage, Savage Secrets, Wild Tribes, Wild Arizona, Chippewa and the Dreamcatcher Indian novels. Native American subjects, Ojibwa settings and women pioneers recur throughout. Edwards published with Dorchester, Signet, Kensington and Harlequin, and her output stopped after it emerged that she had extensively plagiarised other writers. The catalogue records titles through 2015.

Don Coldsmith (February 28, 1926 - June 25, 2009) was an American writer mainly of Westerns and a past president of Western Writers of America. Coldsmith produced more than 40 books and hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles. The Spanish Bit Saga, a sequence of related novels, reshaped the Western by telling events from the Native American point of view. The catalogue lists 41 books from Horsin' Around (1975) to Moon of Madness (2013), including Trail of the Spanish Bit (1980), Buffalo Medicine (1981) and Pale Star (1986). The Great Plains and horses recur in the subjects.

Sherman Alexie

26 books

Sherman Alexie is a Spokane novelist, short story writer, poet, screenwriter and filmmaker whose work draws on his life as an Indigenous American with ancestry in several tribes. Alexie grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation and lives in Seattle, Washington. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007) is his best known book: it took the National Book Award for Young People's Literature in 2007, and the Odyssey Award for best audiobook for young people in 2008, read by Alexie himself. Twenty-six titles are catalogued, from The Business of Fancydancing (1991) to You Don't Have to Say You Love Me (2017).

Louise Erdrich

37 books• 3 series

Louise Erdrich (Karen Louise Erdrich, born June 7, 1954) is an American writer of novels, short stories, poetry and children's books with Native American characters and settings. Erdrich is an enrolled citizen of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians of North Dakota. The Plague of Doves was a 2009 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. The catalogue lists 37 books from Imagination (1982) to Python's Kiss (2026), with the Love Medicine and Birchbark House series among them. Ojibwa life, Indian reservations and poetry feature in the subjects.

William Sarabande is the pen name of Joan Lesley Hamilton Cline, who started writing at 17 and first appeared in print in 1979. The First Americans series carries the Sarabande name across 12 catalogued books, from Beyond the Sea of Ice (1987) through Corridor of Storms (1988), Walkers of the Wind (1990) and Thunder in the Sky (1992) to Spirit Moon (2000). Subjects cover prehistoric peoples, Native Americans and historical fiction. The catalogue opens with Wolves of the Dawn (1986), filed with Celts and the Bronze Age.

Madeline Baker writes historical romance, much of it set among Native American peoples. Fifty-seven books are catalogued, with Reckless Heart (1985) and Love in the Wind (1986) early in the run and Bohannon dated 2023. Apache and Cheyenne subjects recur, along with westerns, mixed descent and time travel. Reckless Love (1987), Reckless Desire (1988), Renegade Heart (1989) and Lacey's Way (1990) sit in the stretch around the 1990s, the decade the list peaks. Lightning and Apache Runaway are the series named here.

Charles G. West writes westerns and historical frontier fiction. The catalogue holds 54 books published between 1996 and 2023, opening with The Tenant (1996) and closing with The First Day of Eternity (2023). Outlaws, revenge, ranchers, criminals and frontier and pioneer life run through the recorded subjects, along with Indians of North America. Series in the listing include Matt Slaughter, Trace McCall, Jason Coles, Little Wolf, Jordan Gray, Culver and John Hawk. Nothing has been catalogued since 2023.

Lynne Reid Banks (31 July 1929 to 4 April 2024) was a British author who wrote for both children and adults. The Indian in the Cupboard sold more than 15 million copies and became a film. The L-Shaped Room, the 1960 debut novel, was a best seller, was filmed, and gained two sequels, The Backward Shadow and Two is Lonely. Banks also wrote Dark Quartet, about the Brontë family, and Path to the Silent Country, about Charlotte Brontë. The catalogue lists 50 books from 1960 to The Red Red Dragon (2022), including the Harry the Poisonous Centipede series.

Allan W. Eckert wrote historical novels for adults and children, natural history and plays. The Narratives of America sequence takes up the frontier, Shawnee history and the wars that came with European settlement. Incident at Hawk's Hill (1971) was a Newbery Medal runner-up, went into Reader's Digest Condensed Books, and Disney adapted it as the 1975 television film The Boy Who Talked to Badgers. Eckert, a naturalist, also wrote more than 225 episodes of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom and took an Emmy Award for that work. The catalogue holds 39 titles, from The Last Great Auk in 1963 to The Infinite Dream in 2011.

Stephen Graham Jones

52 books• 6 series

Stephen Graham Jones (born January 22, 1972) is an American writer of experimental, horror, crime and science fiction. The Only Good Indians, My Heart Is a Chainsaw and The Buffalo Hunter Hunter are horror novels. Jones has taught at the University of Colorado Boulder since 2008 and holds the Ineva Baldwin Professorship of English. The catalogue lists 52 books, from The Fast Red Road (2000) to Off the Reservation (2026). Lake Witch Trilogy is a series, and subjects include Native American life, short stories, westerns and Montana.

Terry C. Johnston wrote westerns about the American frontier: pioneer life, the wars of the West, and the Plains nations including the Dakota and Crow. His 31 novels appeared between 1982 and 2001, at a median of 469 pages, with the 1990s the densest decade. Titus Bass is his best known recurring character and gives one series its name; The Plainsmen, Son Of The Plains and Jonas Hook are the others. Carry the Wind (1982) opens the catalogue and Turn the Stars Upside Down (2001) closes it. Johnston lived from 1947 to 2001, and more than ten million of his books are in print.

Thomas King

28 books• 3 series

Thomas King, born April 24, 1943, is an American-born Canadian writer and broadcast presenter whose work most often concerns First Nations. King previously claimed partial Cherokee descent and in 2025 accepted genealogists' findings that King has no Indigenous ancestry. The catalogue lists 28 books from All My Relations (1988) to Aliens on the Moon (2025), including Medicine River (1990), Green Grass, Running Water (1993) and The Truth About Stories (2003). King's series include DreadfulWater and Minerva Chronicles, and Coyote (Legendary character) and children's fiction are among the subjects.

Gary Paulsen

181 books• 17 series

Survival and outdoor adventure run through Gary Paulsen's writing for young readers. The catalogue holds 181 books, from Some Birds Don't Fly (1968) to Northwind (2022), at a median length of 105 pages. Brian Robeson, Francis Tucket, Duncan Culpepper, Murphy and the World of Adventure books head the series lines, with non-fiction and picture books alongside. No new Paulsen title has appeared since 2022.

Margaret Coel's series include Wind River Reservation, Arapaho Ten Commandments and Catherine McLeod, alongside non-fiction and short stories. Subjects name Vicky Holden and John O'Malley as characters and cover Arapaho Indians, women lawyers, clergy and Wyoming. The 34 catalogued books run from Chief Left Hand (1981) to Man Found Dead in Park (2017). The Eagle Catcher (1995), The Ghost Walker (1996) and The Dream Stalker (1997) are among the titles. The catalogue is listed as likely complete.

Historical western romance is Rosanne Bittner's field, set on the American frontier among pioneers, outlaws and the Indians of North America, the Dakota among them. Savage Destiny, Blue Hawk Saga, Westward America, Outlaw Trail and the Arizona Saga carry the longer stories. Sixty-eight books run from Sweet Prairie Passion (1983) to Shadow Trail (2023), several of the early ones published as F. Rosanne Bittner.

Savage Ecstasy, Defiant Ecstasy and Forbidden Ecstasy all appeared in 1982, the first year in Janelle Taylor's catalogue. Taylor is an American author of historical romance, born June 28, 1944, in Athens, Georgia. Brazen Ecstasy and Tender Ecstasy followed in 1983, and Golden Torment and Valley of Fire in 1984. Series include Gray Eagle, Western Wind, Lakota Skies, Sedgwick Sisters, Southern Historical, Saar and Viking Fantasy. Subject headings name Indians of North America, the American West, mixed descent and romantic suspense, and the catalogue counts 58 books in all.

Navajo country supplies both the setting and the subject of Tony Hillerman's mysteries, which follow reservation police and the investigators Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee. Hillerman's 34 catalogued books start with The Blessing Way (1970) and close in 2023. Alongside the novels sit essay collections and non-fiction on New Mexico and the Rio Grande, plus short stories and a children's title. The 1990s were the peak decade, and the catalogue is now dormant.

Larry McMurtry

48 books• 10 series

Larry McMurtry (Larry Jeff McMurtry, June 3, 1936 to March 25, 2021) was an American novelist, essayist and screenwriter. Most of McMurtry's fiction takes place in the Old West or in contemporary Texas, and the early novels Horseman, Pass By (1961), The Last Picture Show (1966) and Terms of Endearment (1975) trace the decline of small-town Texas life. Screen adaptations of McMurtry's work received 34 Oscar nominations and 13 wins. The catalogue lists 48 books from 1961 to Thalia (2017), including the Lonesome Dove and Berrybender Narratives series and non-fiction.

Thomas Perry was an American writer of mystery and thriller novels, born August 7, 1947, who died on September 15, 2025. The Butcher's Boy (1982) was Perry's debut and received the 1983 Edgar Award for Best First Novel from the Mystery Writers of America. The catalogue lists 41 books, from that debut to The Get Out (2026). Series are Jane Whitefield, Butcher's Boy and Jack Till, and titles include Metzger's Dog (1983), Vanishing Act (1995) and Shadow Woman (1997). Subject headings cover assassins, the Mafia, government investigators and Indians of North America.

Zane Grey

144 books• 13 series

Zane Grey, born Pearl Zane Grey (January 31, 1872 – October 23, 1939), was an American author of adventure novels and stories in the Western genre who presented an idealised American frontier. Riders of the Purple Sage (1912) was Grey's best-selling book. Adaptations of Grey's novels and stories number 112 films, two television episodes and the television series Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre. The catalogue opens with Betty Zane (1903), followed by The Spirit of the Border (1906), The Last of the Plainsmen (1908), The Last Trail (1909) and The Heritage of the Desert (1910). Outlaws, cattle stealing, Mormons and fishing appear among the subjects, and series include the Ohio River Trilogy, Ken Ward and Jim Traft.

Elmer Kelton

74 books• 9 series

Elmer Kelton (April 29, 1926 - August 22, 2009) was an American writer of Westerns, born in Andrews County, Texas. Kelton graduated from the University of Texas in 1948, edited farm and ranch news at the San Angelo Standard-Times until 1963, and was associate editor of Livestock Weekly from 1968 to 1990. Kelton's novels won seven Spur Awards and three Western Heritage Awards, and Kelton received the Owen Wister Award for lifetime achievement. The catalogue holds 74 books from Hot Iron (1956) to Law of the Land (2021), including the Texas Rangers, Texas Tradition and Hewey Calloway series.

Gilbert Morris produced Christian historical fiction at length: 248 catalogued books between 1977 and 2014. The House of Winslow follows one family across American history; the Appomattox Saga and Bonnets & Bugles take up the Civil War; Cheney Duvall, M.D. follows a woman physician; the Seven Sleepers, Dixie Morris and Too Smart Jones series sit alongside, with children's fiction among the subjects. The catalogue opens with Race Against Time (1977), reaches Raina's Choice, and is listed as likely complete.

Jean Craighead George

100 books• 11 series

Julie of the Wolves won Jean Craighead George the Newbery Medal, and My Side of the Mountain (1959) earned a Newbery Honor. George, born July 2, 1919, and died May 15, 2012, was an American writer of more than one hundred books for children and young adults, with the environment and the natural world as recurring themes. George also wrote at least two guides to cooking with wild foods and an autobiography, Journey Inward, and was the U.S. nominee for the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1964. The catalogue lists 100 books from Vulpes, the Red Fox (1948) to Crowbar: The Smartest Bird in the World (2015). Series include 13 Moons, Ecological Mysteries, American Woodland Tales and One Day in the..., and subjects name wolves, owls, falcons and ecology.

Stephanie Grace Whitson is an American writer of historical fiction who has lived in Nebraska since 1975 and took her subject from the lives of pioneer women in the West. Walks The Fire (1994) opens a catalogue of 36 books reaching 2024, and the series include Prairie Winds, Dakota Moons, Keepsake Legacies, Quilt Chronicles and Pine Ridge Portraits. Women pioneers, Dakota Indians, women missionaries, quilts and Christian historical romance recur as subjects.