Wagons West Books in Order
Part ofDana Fuller Ross Books in OrderSee all the Wagons West novels by Dana Fuller Ross in order, with plot summaries, character notes, series background, and guidance on the best place to begin.
Last updated: January 17, 2026
As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases (at no extra cost to you).
Publication Order
25 books
Texas Freedom!
by Dana Fuller Ross
2012
This later Wagons West novel revisits Texas from the Alamo onward, following wagon master Paul Franklin and his descendants as they lead a so called freedom wagon train. Bandit leader Frank Hardin and conflicted heiress Fancy Darrow force them to fight for both survival and principle.
Oklahoma!
by Dana Fuller Ross
1989
Farmers and ranchers pour into the harsh lands of Oklahoma, only to find tick fever killing their cattle and crooked land dealers stealing their dreams. Toby Holt rides in to stop a brewing range war, knowing that one misstep could cost his friends their homes and lives.
Celebration!
by Dana Fuller Ross
1989
As America prepares to celebrate the July 4, 1876 centennial, tensions simmer beneath the patriotic parades. From coast to coast, enemies of the new order see a chance to strike, and Toby Holt faces a final test to keep a national festival from turning into a day of terror.
New Mexico!
by Dana Fuller Ross
1988
In the 1870s New Mexico Territory, a one handed outlaw and his comanchero band raid settlements and sell captured women. A frontiersman businessman goes undercover inside the gang, risking his life to free the prisoners and bring a measure of justice to a violent borderland.
Arizona!
by Dana Fuller Ross
1988
In the brutal deserts west of Yuma, law has little hold and renegades rule by fear. Cavalry officer Reed Kerr, new husband to Cindy Holt, fights to bring order, while back east a deadly plot against Alexandra Woodling threatens the Holt family from another direction.
Wisconsin!
by Dana Fuller Ross
1987
Vast northern forests draw hard drinking lumberjacks and ruthless timber barons to Wisconsin. Toby Holt tries to carve out a new logging empire while fighting powerful rivals, and young Henry Blake’s reckless desires threaten both Cindy Holt’s heart and the fragile future of the family business.
Kentucky!
by Dana Fuller Ross
1987
Toby Holt races to Kentucky to stop a plot to assassinate President Grant. Along the way he protects a woman photographer whose accidental picture may expose the conspirators and finds himself drawn to a local beauty who complicates an already deadly assignment.
Tennessee!
by Dana Fuller Ross
1986
Sent on a dangerous mission into Tennessee, Toby Holt expects gunmen and ambushes and is ready for both. What he does not expect is a captivating woman tied to a ruthless renegade general, forcing him to choose between duty and desire.
Illinois!
by Dana Fuller Ross
1986
Toby Holt travels to booming Chicago on his way to start a logging venture in Wisconsin. As he navigates politics, graft, and shifting alliances, he and those around him are swept up in the devastating citywide fire of 1871.
Mississippi!
by Dana Fuller Ross
1985
Along the rich lands of the Mississippi and in restless New Orleans, Toby Holt’s latest mission draws him toward the most powerful criminal mastermind in the West. As gentlemen and outlaws vie for control, he must walk a tight line between law, loyalty, and survival.
Louisiana!
by Dana Fuller Ross
1985
President Grant sends Toby Holt on a risky diplomatic journey to nineteenth century China, where foreign intrigue and rebellion threaten disaster. Back on the American frontier, his sister Cindy proves her own courage as she faces hardships that test the Holt legacy in a very different way.
Missouri!
by Dana Fuller Ross
1984
Majestic steamboats churn up the Missouri River, carrying pioneers, traders, gamblers, and thieves toward the West. Behind the glitter of riverboat salons lurk bandits and Sioux war parties waiting along the banks, and every journey becomes a gamble with wealth, freedom, and life at stake.
Idaho!
by Dana Fuller Ross
1984
A new governor, Toby Holt, must be escorted across treacherous mountains into the untamed Idaho Territory. With cavalry troops at his back and enemies on every side, Toby and his allies struggle to impose law and build a safe homeland out of raw wilderness.
Utah!
by Dana Fuller Ross
1983
As rival transcontinental railroads race toward a linkup in Utah, Toby Holt and Rob Martin are caught in the middle. A sinister stranger threatens Clarissa Holt and Beth Martin with secrets from the past, turning a triumph of engineering into a stage for revenge.
Montana!
by Dana Fuller Ross
1983
In 1866, Toby Holt and his friend Rob Martin are ordered to survey Montana for a new railroad line. Sioux leader Thunder Cloud and the vicious Ma Hastings gang fight them at every turn, and the kidnapping of their young wives makes the mission desperately personal.
Dakota!
by Dana Fuller Ross
1983
After the Civil War, Toby Holt rides into the Dakota Territory hoping to make peace with the Sioux. With two sworn enemies hunting him and an alluring Sioux woman offering risky help, he finds himself trapped between betrayal, desire, and the possibility of a lasting truce.
Washington!
by Dana Fuller Ross
1982
At the end of the Civil War, wounded hero Toby Holt claims homestead land in Washington’s vast timber country. Ruthless profiteers scheme to seize the forests, and Toby is torn between a calculating courtesan who once trapped him in a loveless marriage and a spirited young woman promised to another man.
Nevada!
by Dana Fuller Ross
1982
In booming Virginia City, General Lee Blake must move a fortune in silver from the Comstock Lode to Union forces in Missouri. With Confederate agents, foreign spies, and greedy opportunists all plotting to stop the shipment, Whip Holt, Toby, and their allies face a journey where any attack could be fatal.
Colorado!
by Dana Fuller Ross
1981
The 1858 gold strike turns Denver and the surrounding mountains into a magnet for dreamers and swindlers. Wagon train veteran Chet Harris, mineral man Luke Brando, and young Cathy Blake all chase opportunity, while General Lee Blake works under presidential orders to secure Colorado’s loyalty as the nation edges toward civil war.
California!
by Dana Fuller Ross
1981
Gold fever sweeps California, flooding the territory with hopeful prospectors and hardened killers. In Sacramento Valley, former Texas Ranger Rick Miller struggles to keep order, Melissa Austen is driven into desperation, and wagon master Whip Holt fights to rescue her and protect the fragile new settlements.
Texas!
by Dana Fuller Ross
1980
In 1844, the young Republic of Texas struggles to survive. Volunteers from Oregon answer the call, and Captain Rick Miller leads a wagon train through hostile country toward the Texas frontier, where Mexican troops, raiders, and his forbidden love for another man’s woman threaten to destroy everything.
Oregon!
by Dana Fuller Ross
1980
The first great wagon train finally nears the Pacific, only to find Oregon contested by American forces, British officers, and Russian agents. Wagon master Whip Holt is caught between his wife and Cathy van Ayl Blake, and the settlers must fight for both their land and their loyalties.
Wyoming!
by Dana Fuller Ross
1979
As the wagon train approaches the Rocky Mountains, Whip Holt must guide five hundred settlers through looming winter, hostile warriors, and plots hatched in far off courts. Two determined women, Cathy van Ayl and La ena, both claim his heart, turning the journey into a struggle of passion as well as survival.
Nebraska!
by Dana Fuller Ross
1979
The first wagon train rolls out of Independence, Missouri and onto the Nebraska plains. Quiet, iron willed Whip Holt takes command, while Cathy van Ayl leaves her family behind to follow the caravan. Sabotage, treachery, and brutal weather test their courage long before they glimpse the Rockies.
Independence!
by Dana Fuller Ross
1979
In 1837, President Andrew Jackson backs a daring plan to send a wagon train toward the unclaimed Oregon country. Mountain man Sam Brentwood, scout Whip Holt, and fiery widow Claudia Humphries lead a diverse band from New York to Independence, Missouri, forging fragile unity on a deadly road west.
Series background & context
The Wagons West series is a long running historical saga about the people who carried the United States across the continent. It opens in 1837, when a government backed expedition sends a mixed band of settlers toward the Oregon country, and follows their descendants through gold strikes, civil war, and industrial expansion.
At the heart of the early books is the first great wagon train. Mountain man Sam Brentwood and wagon scout Whip Holt help lead a caravan from the East Coast to Independence, Missouri, then west across the plains. Along the way they clash with hostile terrain, wary Native nations, foreign rivals, and their own passengers, who bring every kind of hope and grievance onto the trail.
As the wagons roll through Nebraska, Wyoming, and on to Oregon, the focus gradually shifts to Whip Holt, fiery widow Claudia Humphries, and determined Cathy van Ayl. The series uses their tangled loyalties and romances to show how fragile any sense of order can be when five hundred people are living on the move.
Once the pioneers reach the Pacific, the books fan out. Later volumes send familiar characters and their children into the Texas fight for independence, the California gold rush, and the mining camps of Colorado and Nevada. Each state titled novel drops the Holt and Blake families into a new frontier, whether that is boomtown streets, timber rich Washington, or the raw railroad towns of Montana and Dakota.
The Civil War and its aftermath reshape the cast again. Whip’s son Toby Holt steps forward as a veteran cavalryman and roaming troubleshooter, answering calls from presidents and governors who want a known name to face down outlaws, speculators, and saboteurs. His missions take readers to steamboat packed rivers, New Orleans back alleys, the great Chicago fire, and logging camps in Wisconsin.
Throughout, the tone stays focused on boots on the ground. Politics and high strategy appear, but almost always as they touch farmers, scouts, shopkeepers, newspapermen, and soldiers. Battles and disasters matter less for their statistics than for what they do to a marriage, a friendship, or a fragile new town.
Later entries push the family toward the centennial of 1876 and the sense that a certain kind of frontier is ending. Celebration brings together many of the threads as the country prepares to mark its hundredth birthday under a cloud of unrest. By then the books have built a fictional history that runs parallel to real events, giving readers a way to walk through nearly forty years of western expansion with one extended family.
Taken as a whole, Wagons West reads like an alternate family album for the nineteenth century United States. Every volume has its own local conflicts, yet each also serves as another chapter in a long story about migration, ambition, compromise, and the cost of claiming a continent.
Edited by
Software engineer whose passion for tracking book recommendations from podcasts inspired the creation of MRB.
Lead investor at 3one4 Capital whose startup expertise and love for books helped shaped MRB and its growth.










































Comments
Did we miss something? Have feedback?
Help us improve this page by sharing your thoughts