B.M. Bower books

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Flying U Reading Order

Standalone Novels

B.M. Bower, born Bertha Muzzy Sinclair in 1871, was one of the most prolific Western novelists of the early twentieth century and the first woman to make a career of writing popular Westerns. Her real-life experience on Montana ranches informed her fiction, which featured working cowboys, detailed ranch life, and the landscapes of the American West. She published her first novel, Chip of the Flying U, as a magazine serial before it appeared in hardcover in 1906 with illustrations by the famous painter Charlie Russell.

That debut launched her long-running Flying U series, set on a fictional Montana ranch, which eventually grew to thirteen books. Beyond the Flying U, Bower wrote dozens of standalone novels covering cattle drives, frontier justice, and life in the open range. Several of her books were adapted into films during the silent movie era and beyond. She wrote 57 Western novels over a career spanning more than three decades, and many of her works have been reprinted and remain in print today.