Living Fire: Zeb Finley and the Hornswoggled Thief

by Lois Ruby

Twelve-year-old Zeb Finley, a New York street urchin, is half dare-devil and half day-dreamer. He’s the last boy off the Orphan Train deep into the Midwestern prairie, sweating in his itchy new clothes when he meets the lonely young widow, Idella Spurlock, waiting at the train stop. She’s alone, he’s alone, and so the two trudge off together.

Neither imagines what will soon season their lives, including a train robber named Tucker, a stash of booty from Tucker’s heist, an encounter with a grey wolf, and swarming grasshoppers that darken the sun, level crops, stop trains in their tracks, and chomp wool off the shirts on their backs. And then there’s the murderous Bender family. Kate Bender promises, “Cross my palm with coin, and I’ll reach your pa in the World Beyond.” Can she, or is she a total fake?

Zeb hankers to hop on a train back to New York where life was free and simple—except for freezing, starving, and sleeping in muddy gutters. But maybe he’ll make his peace with Idella, with a prairie girl named Lucy who teaches him how to shoot a cottontail, with Osage Indians, and with the lovable scoundrel, Tucker. Or maybe not. Before Zeb nearly loses himself on the vast Kansas prairie, he must find his heroic self in the story he’s secretly writing about Montague Mortis, and the Hornswoggled Horse Thief.

Living Fire is a rollicking novel with humor and heart, in harmony with the Kansas motto, “To the stars through difficulties.”

270 pages, Paperback

Published September 30, 2025

About the author

Lois Ruby is the author of fifteen books for middle-graders and teens, including STEAL AWAY HOME, SKIN DEEP, and THE SECRET OF LAUREL OAKS. She and her husband live in Albuquerque, New Mexico, at the foothills of the awesome Sandia Mountains. Lois explores lots of haunted places, including ghostly locations in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and even a few spooky spots in Australia and Thailand. No spirits have tapped her on the shoulder yet, but she hasn't given up hope.