I first read this book about 20 years ago. I recently found it and re-read it. I'm keeping it in my sons room for when he's old enough to read. It's a great story that teaches right from wrong, good versus evil, and about life and death. It does contain a couple hunting sequences.

This book is for children of all ages..parents who are children and grandparents who are also children. If you are not a resident of Montana, take the trip to the "BIG SKY COUNTRY", travel the roads and see where the story began and where it finished. It will be worth you time.

A story of a teenager growing up in Great Falls Montana who comes across an abandoned greyhound and his companion cagey male Canadian Goose. The story is hilarious, especially at the end where the dog catches the rabbit at the racetrack, and rips it to shreds (during a race) and the goose manages to create chaos with the other dogs. The greyhound inspires the teenager to train hard as a track star. I enjoyed the book immensely.

Armed with not much more than an English degree, Groneberg responds to an ad in, of all places, the literary Utne Reader, for someone to work on a horse ranch in Colorado. Before you can say "giddyap," he's working toward another degree in horses in Montana. There's a girl involved, of course, and you somehow suspect they'll ride happily off into the Western sunset together. But things take a darker turn...
Beautiful writing; the effects of Groneberg's English degree show up in the beautiful and poetic language of this surprising and very good book.

This book renewed my belief that good things do happen to people who have dreams and are willing to pay the price to achieve them. Tom Groneberg, in my opinion, is such a person and maybe one day I'll be lucky enough to meet him and tell him that. His story is beautifully told in unvarnished prose and readers will enjoy his word pictures and his smooth writing style. I really enjoyed this book very much and I highly recommend it.

This is the best book I've read all year. It surprised me--The Secret Life of Cowboys is a book for anyone who has ever had a dream--of a different job, a different future, a different life--and wondered what it might take to pursue it. The book left me feeling energized to live my life to the fullest, to take a few chances, and to appreciate what I already have. It made me laugh, made me cry in places, and made me think. I recommend this book highly. Everyone should read it.

Andrew Garcia was a "woolly Texan from Spanish America" who found himself on the Montana frontier in 1876, at the age of 23. These are his colorful reminiscences of his Nez Perce and Pend'Oreille wives, and hardships undergone among dubious characters.

I don't know that I agree with Ms Garrett that every word in it is true. Garcia wrote it towards the end of a long life, when he was nicknamed "the Squaw Kid" and dined out on these stories.

However the essence of the book rings true. It will strike a chord with anyone whose heart has been by the lonely beauty of the High Plains and by longing for what once was, not so long ago, and is now out of reach forever.

I read this book in the early 1970's when I was the author's age, and have never forgotten it. Andrew Garcia writes with bittersweet longing for a time when adventure was freely available for those foolhardy enough to risk all. He writes in imperfect, but colorful prose about simpler times. Villains humorously drawl, "I'll plug ya if ya move." His self-depracating wit sounds like a real Huckleberry Finn in the wild west. The center piece of the tale is the massacre of the Nez Perce tribe by the U.S. Army; which Garcia relates from the first hand account of his beloved first wife (a Nez Perce herself). Fireside desire for beautiful native women in isolated wilderness, tempered by his Catholic background make for great romantic tension. Whether exactly true or not does not matter. It is a wonderful story of adventure, love,and sadness. I look forward to re-reading it to escape back to paradise.

In the sixties I was in a dentist's office in Huntsville, Alabama, with my four young daughters. I picked up one of the better magazines, Esquire or something, and started an excerpt from "Tough Trip Through Paradise." With attention drawn in several directions, you can't usually get into a magazine story. Suddenly I was so caught up in Mr. Garcia's adventures that I tried to read faster and faster before whichever child was finished in the dentist chair. I did finish the part of the book the magazine finished and very soon, perhaps before we went home, I visited the library and checked out the exact book. I have bought by special order Mr. Garcia's journal and given it to a library, my father-in-law, and many others. I have it on order now to give to a neighbor. My father-in-law, who scoffed at gifts and other books, quoted from it and re-read it until his death. For once in my marriage I pleased him! About the book itself and Andrew Garcia: He knew how to write, did he ever. I still quote passages from the book to myself -- (these aren't exact quotes, ". . . I'm not too good but I don't steal horses." "The young maidens know they will marry an older man with means to support them but first they will have a fling with the young bucks." "I notice the squaws want their dresses made with buttons down the front." It is so simply written that it is elegant. I believe every word is true, he did not need to elaborate, every day was exciting.

In Texas, Stuart Hayden Crestwood III was leaving his third wife Laura Duncan Crestwood because she cannot deliver him the heir to the family fortune. When the divorce is final, Stuart will marry his next wife, Charlene. To insure that there will be no frivolous law suits, especially from Laura, Stuart has the family fortune of nine million buried in a Cook Island trust fund. Laura manages to grab some of his money in a questionable manner before vanishing into the night.

Four years later in the farthest area within the remote Kootenai National Forest in Montana, wealthy Adam Scott lives a reclusive life as he recovers from the accident that killed his wife and child. He goes through therapists like Yogi Bear goes through picnic baskets. Laura Duncan is the latest victim to arrive on the scene to work on his shoulder. As the difficult Adam and the secretive Laura begin to work together in close proximity, they fall in love. However, she was burned once by a wealthy male and the accident that nearly destroyed his life turns out to a deliberate act perpetrated by an unknown assailant who plans to complete the job.

UNDER MONTANA SKIES is an entertaining romantic suspense novel starring two scarred individuals. The story line is exciting as Adam and Laura struggle against their attraction for each other. The contrast between the serenity of the national park and her ex and the killers add to the wonderful feel of the tale. Big Sky country and several locals provide color that makes readers believe they are in a remote section of the state. Darlene Graham takes her audience on a fabulous journey that readers of regional romances and intrigue will abundantly relish.

Harriet Klausner

A wonderful book I couldn't put down. I can't wait for Ms. Graham's next book.

Darlene Graham presents her readers with a true gift in her latest novel, "Under Montana Skies." This fascinating story is set in the beautiful Big Sky country of Montana, and contains some of the best elements of a fine romance: desire, passionate love, mysterious intrigue and a happy-ever-after ending. And getting to that delicious ending is half the fun in this mesmirizing page-turner. Graham once again proves herself a formidible newcomer to watch for in the romance world.

This fascinating document is an account of the notorious "road agents" operating in Montana in the early 1860s during and after the Alder Gulch gold strike. These men took over the towns of Alder Creek, Virginia City and Bannock and ran them as criminal enterprises. Eventually groups of ordinary citizens formed secret vigilante organizations to combat the road agents. Taking the law into their own hands they pursued, shot or hanged as many of the road agents as possible. On Virginia City's Boot Hill there are presently gravemarkers with the names of a number of the men mentioned in the book who were captured and hanged by the vigilantes. Dimsdale, the author, was born in England and took over editorship of the Virginia City paper. Some of the events he witnessed, but more he relates from the testimony of those who participated in them. The accounts are a bit confusing -- they read as newspaper reports and lack a historian's distance and clarity. But they make up for all faults in the immediacy of their telling. This is a very valuable document of life in the old west, and gives an extraordinary sense of what life was like in a raw mining town, too new to have any legitimate law enforcement. Mark Twain cites Dimsdale and quotes him copiously in "Roughing It," his account of his adventures in Carson City, Nevada, and other places in the West.

Dimsdale writes of Montana history in a clarity not often appreciated by some history authors. "The Vigilantes of Montana" brings, page after page, the gold-rush era of Montana Territory to the memory and eyes of the reader. This fascinating text tells the story as my ancestors told of living in Montana during this period. It is an excellent choice for any reader interested in a true account of the romantic and hostile West.

Although Dimsdale professes only an "intimate acquaintance with parties cognizant of the facts related.", there far too many instances where he recalls minute particulars of an incident and/or corrects the contemporary accounts of the vigilantes' exploits. Another fact is, that his status as an "educated Englishman" would have made him an ideal candidate for a group such as the vigilantes. He would have been an important asset in maintaining their credibility with the public. I'm a writer myself and know by the sheer quantity of minute details related, it could only have come from witnessing, and not merely from transcribing. I guess you could get away with that in the early 1860s'. This is a first-person account! And, a great book! Earl Swinhart

Following the death of her little sister, Christina, Rachel Montgomery is determined to find her sister's child and to care for her. Besieged with guilt because of her inaccessibility to Christina, Rachel is not only trying to make amends, she is also trying to locate and hold on to the last part of her sister. But Rachel knows she needs help and it comes in the form of Jack Henderson, a California-based detective who has been called in by his sister to locate the missing baby. Having come from a broken family himself, Jack helps Rachel deal with her guilt and feelings of inadequacy when it comes to how she could have helped Christina. In Jack, Rachel finds a steady, intelligent, and attractive man who has painful secrets of his own.

Pat Warren has written a fluid story about two people who share a common family background but who have dealt with it in different ways. The title of the story is misleading because although the quest to find the baby is what brings Jack and Rachel together, it never develops into a full-fledged search. Instead, Warren focuses on Jack and Rachel and how they help each other deal with their pasts and whether or not they will be able to have a future together. Both Jack and Rachel are strongly drawn characters and the book doesn't falter when it comes to their relationship. I was a bit disappointed, however, when the search for the baby wasn't spun out better. Instead, it seemed to be used merely as an inadequate plot device since this story does well just the way it is.

This entire Montana Maverick Series is the best. I read Silhouette books all the time and am glad to see they are continuing a series of romance books over a period of time. The Baby Quest is a wonderfully written book!! 5 Stars!

Butte, Montana, has a rich history with stories that just seem too preposterous to be true! ("Copper Camp" written in 1930's is good example).

Michael Malone, a historian at Montana State in Bozeman, must have felt the same way. He did some good, scholarly research, and found out that many of the wild tales WERE true!

The book is VERY readable, almost like a novel, filled with some wild stories about how the three "Copper Kings" (Butte's version of "Robber Barons") worked, wheeled, dealed, cheated, competed and conspired to make as much money as they could from "the richest hill on earth."

In the mix are many stories about the everyday Butte residents, who, to this day, are actually friendly, big-hearted people...who put their hearts and backs into the building of the town.

Butte, Montana truly is "as ugly as sin" (quickly verified by any who has been there), "and just as fascinating."

This is a highly readable and well-researched account of what must be one of the most fascinating towns in the United States. As anyone who has visited Butte can attest, the town possesses a cultural richness and idiosyncratic character unmatched anywhere in the US west, maybe the whole country, and Malone's book captures this nicely. I particularly enjoyed the discussion of political machinations in Montana around the turn of the century, which make today's politics look anemic by comparison. If you have any interest at all in Montana/western history, political economy, mining or politics, I couldn't recommend this book more highly.

A well-written summary of more than a decade's analysis of battlefield archeology. Fascinating identification of several bodies from a few bones, especially those well-know persons who were found in sites other than where eyewittnesses placed them in written history. The book suffers, however, by a brief and weak synopsis that fails in its attempt to draw too-broad conclussions about the entire frontier population from a few soldiers' bones.

This was a superbly written volume outlining the archaeological reclaimation of the battlefield site of the Little Big Horn. A military archeologist (Scott), a forensic archeologist (Conner), and a forensics anthropologist (Willey) combined talents to preserve and identify the material evidence of the events that took place there after a wildfire stripped the scene of vegitation and exposed the site to erosive processes and human curiosity. The book details: 1) the history of the 7th Cavalry, including among other things, the age of the soldiers, their origin, and length of service, 2) the efforts to identify individual soldiers and the location of their fall in battle, 3) the effect of the rigorous life on the frontier on the health of the soldiers, 4) etc. I found particularly interesting the efforts to reconstruct the facial features of some of the skulls in an effort to identify the remains with specific people. This is a good text of archaeology at work.

This book describes all of the human remains found on the Little Bighorn battlefield and even gives positive identifications of a handful of them. This is also the only book where you can find analysis and information on the bones found on Reno Hill in 1958, and other bones and skeletons found from 1877 to the mid-20th century. Don't be dismayed by the scholarly subject matter - it is well-written and the prose is clear. The only criticism I must offer is the attempt to make far-reaching conclusions about 19th century American life in the West from what can be deduced from their bones. This was unconvincing because I didn't think there were enough bones available to justify any such hypotheses.