Wyoming Western Books In Order

Publication Order of Wyoming Books

Wyoming Western is a series of romantic westerns written by Johanna Lindsey. The books take readers to the 1800s. There, men and women of wildly varying temperaments fall in love.

+The Story
Johanna Lindsey tends to attract a lot of controversy. Many a reader has disparaged the author for the clichés and the tropes that litter her books, in particular, her earlier works. She has been criticized for encouraging negative stereotypes about women, Native Americans, sex, and sexual assault.

And all those criticisms and more are most commonly levied against the Wyoming Western series. But the books also have their supporters, readers who appreciate the time the author takes to build the sexual tension between her characters, not to mention her uncanny ability to generate entertaining banter.

As the name suggests, the Wyoming Western series is a collection of Westerns. The books take place in the 1800s in Wyoming and Texas.

And because Johanna Lindsey is best known for writing romance, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to learn that romance drives these books. This is despite the strong elements of action and adventure that also permeate the series.

The Wyoming Western novels are best read in order. While they seem like largely independent novels, there are loose threads that connect the stories, threads that are not necessarily essential to the understanding of any one plot but whose knowledge is bound to improve your appreciation for any given book.

The first novel in the trilogy, ‘Brave the Wild Wind’ explores Jessie and Chase’s romance. Jessie’s father beat her mother to within an inch of her life because he wrongly presumed that she was cheating on him.

And after throwing her out of their home, he proceeded to raise Jessie like a man, instilling in her his hate of all things feminine. And having been raised under such a misogynistic hand, Jessie grew to hate the feminine aspects of her being.

This is as she constructed a steely demeanor that fought any attempt to control her. Chase and Jessie meet when Jessie’s mother comes back to town. Chase is a nice guy. So even though he immediately feels an attraction to Jessie, he refuses to act on his emotions, thrown off by the woman’s bratty attitude.

Jessie, for her part, cannot believe that she met a man who sparked in her a desire to embrace her feminine side. Jessie and Chase spend their novel dancing around one another’s attitudes and personalities; Chase is determined to tame Jessie but the tempestuous woman refuses to be bowed.

Anyone that reads and finishes ‘Brave the Wild Wind’ might be tempted to presume that ‘Savage Thunder’, the sequel is actually a standalone novel; set in the same world as its predecessor but largely unconnected to the book that came before.

After all, the novel kicks things off by arranging a violent encounter between an English Lady and virgin who just lost her elderly husband and a brutish Native American who loathes the white man.

‘Savage Thunder’ often attracts the most controversy because it, more than any other Wyoming Western novel, plays with Native American stereotypes. This is on top of all the elements of sexual assault and rape that it brings to bear.

But the book isn’t quite as standalone as some people think because Colt Thunder, the Native American hero at the center of the novel, is the half-brother of Jessie, the heroine from the first book.

While that relation doesn’t necessarily drive the story, its presence adds new layers to the hero’s character, not to mention his relationship with the heroine.

It is also within the pages of ‘Savage Thunder’ that Angel is produced. A dark, mysterious and dangerous gunslinger with a penchant for violence, Angel is the smoldering hero of ‘Angel’, the final novel in the Wyoming Western series.

Angel’s story takes readers all the way to Texas where his attempts to keep a meddlesome young woman safe draw him into conflict with some bad people.

The Wyoming Western books are very melodramatic. The characters are larger than life. Their personalities are exaggerated to the highest possible level and the decisions they make are not always rational.

The men are typically nicer than their demeanors suggest. They can be rough but they also have the capacity for tenderness. The women are unpredictable and argumentative. Interspersed between the love stories at the center of each of the Wyoming Western novels is an element of danger that adds to the stakes.

+The Author
Johanna Helen is an American author that was born in 1952 in Germany to a United States Soldier. The family moved around a lot, though they eventually settled in Hawaii when her father died.

Johanna started writing in 1977. She has since sold tens of millions of copies of her books. Most of the author’s works are historical in nature. She’s written everything from Regency to Western and even Viking romance.

+Brave the Wild Wind
Jessie Blair was raised like a man. Her father chased her mother away for supposedly cheating on him when Jessie was young. He then taught her to hate all things feminine.

When Chase Summers comes to town, Jessie is immediately drawn to him. So she isn’t particularly amused when Chase spurns her attempts at seduction. Jessie vows to bring the handsome drifter to his knees.

Chase, for his part, cannot believe Jessie’s arrogance. The fact that she would presume to claim his heart infuriates him. So Chase makes it his mission to tempt the fiery woman, a task that draws him into Jessie’s conflict with the people that killed her father.

+Savage Thunder
Jocelyn Fleming was pretty young when her elderly husband died. She was also a virgin. Determined to satisfy her carnal desires, she left the polite streets of London for the untamed hills of the American West.

Colt Thunder was almost whipped to death when the men in his community found him with a white woman. That was back when the part white part Native American gentleman still cared about assimilating into white society.

These days Colt wants nothing to do with White women. So when he meets and rescues Jocelyn, he abandons her the moment he secures her safety. This is despite the spark he felt the moment their eyes met.

But Jocelyn refuses to be spurned. She knows what she felt when she met her Native American Savior and she is determined to gain his acceptance and, hopefully, his heart.