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Maxine, Bonnie, and Jim Ed Brown are a family act with a hit record sitting atop 1959's country music charts. The world at their feet, lives of success seem to spread out before them like an unending highway. But celebrity has its price, and the times ahead will deliver more than their fair share of bumps in the road.

Judge Roy Bean is an infamous arbiter of Old West justice. For years, he writes admiring letters to British stage actress Lillie Langtry, and she occasionally responds. But just as they are about to meet face-to-face, fate intervenes and keeps this oddball romance from blooming.

Nathan Bedford Forrest was the most reviled and celebrated, loathed and legendary, of Civil War generals. We see Forrest off the battlefield, in the more hidden but no less telling moments of his life: wooing the woman who would become his wife; battling an addiction to gambling; overcoming his abhorrence of the bureaucracy of the army to rise to its highest ranks. We see him taking part in the business of slave trading, but treating his own slaves humanely.

Murder suspect E.J. Watson is gunned down by an enraged mob, each claiming self-defense. Over four decades later, his son returns to the Florida Everglades in order to discover the truth.

Drawn from fragments of historical fact, Matthiessen's masterpiece depicts the fortunes and misfortunes of Edgar J. Watson, a real-life entrepreneur and outlaw who appeared in the lawless Florida Everglades around the turn of the century.

Late 19th-century China is a tumultuous land beset by warring enemies--both from beyond its borders and within the fabled walls of the Forbidden City. When her son and adopted son each succumb to early deaths, Orchid reluctantly assumes greater power. While foreign nations like Japan, Russia, France, and England fight for their share of the Chinese spoils, Orchid sees her nation divide into opposing factions. Struggling against sexism and insurgence, only she can keep China from tearing itself apart.

Arriving in late 19th-century China with her missionary parents, Pearl Buck is soon fascinated by her new home and strikes up a friendship with a young Chinese girl named Willow. The two become inseparable even as civil war, failed relationships, and world conflicts threaten all they hold dear.

God has blessed Hezekiah--his kingdom is flourishing. The people are prospering and the city of Jerusalem is safe from invaders. But the king worries that his beloved wife may be barren. After all his hard work in preserving the faith and protecting the faithful, the thought that one of his pagan-worshiping nephews will become ruler is upsetting. But he suffers greater anguish when he stumbles upon the secrets of his queen.

Shortly after the death of King Solomon in 931 B.C., the Promised Land is divided into two separate nations: Israel in the north, and Judah in the south. Hezekiah is the second son of King Ahaz of Judah. As he comes to power, he must navigate a troubled path to reunite his wayward people with Yahweh.

Spanish alchemist Franciso de la Zaragoza--more than a hundred years old and known as a wise man and healer--and Sheriff Pat Garrett, the man who killed Billy the Kid, meet. The men share their stories, evoking the wonder of the Old West as they wrestle with possible answers to their deepest questions.