Books by William Johnstone

For generations, the Jensens have struggled to build their home, their land, and their dreams. But now the family is forced to fight fire with fire, bullet by bullet, blood for blood...For Smoke and his daughter Denny, life on the Sugarloaf Ranch is more valuable than all the gold in the world. Which works out fine, since all the gold mines in Big Rock were squeezed dry years ago. Even so, that won''t stop a pair of smooth-talking businessmen from trying to squeeze out a little more. One of them has developed a newfangled method for extracting gold--something called "hydraulics"--and he''s bought up all the old mines to do it. His partner is the son of legendary gunfighter Frank Morgan, and Denny thinks he''s awful handsome. Smoke isn''t sure what to think of these would-be gold-diggers. Especially when the handsome one triggers a rivalry with Denny''s off-and-on beau, a U.S. Deputy. And then the smart one hires a small army of gunfighter to protect his mines from sabotage...The Jensons can smell trouble brewing from a mile away. And when it involves gold, guns, and good love gone bad, it''s more than just trouble. It''s a massacre waiting to happen...

Set in the early days of the Jensen family saga, this gunblazing adventure follows Smoke and Sally from their first year of marriage to the founding of the legendary Sugarloaf Ranch...For most couples, the marriage vows end with "''Til death do us part." But when Smoke Jensen takes Sally Reynolds as his lawfully wedded wife, it''s just the beginning. The tragic deaths of Smoke''s first wife and child weigh heavily on his heart. Thankfully, Sally is there to give him the support he needs when they return to Colorado, where it all happened. She''s ready to embrace her husband''s past--for better or worse--and to welcome his friend Preacher into the family. But when outlaws make an attempt to kidnap a local girl, Sally is forced to use the gun skills she had learned from Smoke to save both of their lives, learning the hard way what it means to be married to a Jensen...

This two-part commentary argues that Chronicles, placed as it is among the ''historical books'' in the traditional Old Testament of the Christian church, is much misunderstood. Restored to its proper position as the final book in the canon as arranged in the order of the Hebrew Bible, it is rather to be understood as a work of theology essentially directed towards the future. The Chronicler begins his work with the problem facing the whole human race in Adam-the forfeiture of the ideal of perfect oneness with God''s purpose. He explores the possibility of the restoration of that ideal through Israel''s place at the centre of the world of the nations. This portrayal reaches its climax in an idealized presentation of the reign of Solomon, in which all the rulers of the earth, including most famously the Queen of Sheba, bring their tribute in acknowledgment of Israel''s status (Volume 1). As subsequent history only too clearly shows, however, the Chronicler argues (Volume 2), that Israel itself, through unfaithfulness to Torah, has forfeited its right to possession of its land and is cast adrift among these same nations of the world. But the Chronicler''s message is one of hope. By a radical transformation of the chronology of Israel''s past into theological terms, the generation whom the Chronicler addresses becomes the fiftieth since Adam. It is the generation to whom the jubilee of return to the land through a perfectly enabled obedience to Torah, and thus the restoration of the primal ideal of the human race, is announced.

This collection of inter-related essays argues that the way in which Chronicles incorporates and develops material from Samuel-Kings offers an analogy for the way in which the final edition of Exodus was produced. Embedded within the text of Exodus there is an earlier Deuteronomistic version recoverable from the reminiscences of the exodus in Deuteronomy. This, it is suggested, is the most objective method available for recreating the literary history of Exodus and must constitute the first stage in any analysis of Exodus. Already, it produces some surprisingly radical results.