Wasted (Hardback or Cased Book)

NOMINEE — ACADEMY OF WESTERN ARTISTS — BEST WESTERN NOVEL 2025

In the Wyoming Territory of the 1880s, the Old West was built on blood, whiskey, and second chances.

A nameless drunk tries to end his life beneath a roaring train. Instead, he survives — battered, broken, and stripped of memory. Dragged into the orbit of Burton Ardway, a wealthy cattleman and hotelier, and Ash Fendris, a ruthless outlaw clinging to chaos, the man earns a cruel new name: Wasted.

On Ardway’s ranch, Wasted is beaten, mocked, and forced into brutal labor. Yet fragments of a lost identity emerge — a woman’s green eyes, the echo of gunfire, the shadow of a past that refuses to stay buried. In the frontier town of Spirits Bend, the three men’s lives collide in violence, betrayal, and the dangerous hope of redemption.

Written with the grit of classic Western fiction and the haunting atmosphere of gothic literature, Wasted delivers a powerful story of ruin and reckoning. Fans of Cormac McCarthy, Deadwood, and frontier historical fiction books will find a new favorite here.

Perfect for readers of:

• Gritty Western novels with outlaws and gunslingers
• Historical Western fiction set in the Old West
• Redemption stories about broken men and second chances
• Dark, atmospheric frontier tales with literary depth

Wasted is more than a Western novel — it’s a journey into the heart of violence, memory, and survival, where even the most ruined soul may carry the spark of salvation.

"With Wasted, Sam Park introduces us to a protagonist as ultimately admirable as he is unexpected: the town drunk. In a time of terse, stripped-down prose, Parks’ elegant descriptions allow the reader to see his story in a way few authors do today."
—Henry Parke, author, The Greatest Westerns Ever Made and the People Who Made Them

"Wasted spins its tale with violent grit, and surprising heart, but with no phony gestures of heroism or a lack of emotional reality. It's a hard tale about tough people and redemption, told damn well by Sam F. Park. Park is a new voice of the West and we should all give him a listen."
—C. Courtney Joyner, author, the Shotgun series, Western Portraits, and The Westerners: Interviews with Actors, Directors, Writers and Producers