With the publication of the first Sackett novel The Daybreakers, in 1960, L'Amour changed his focus from a single man on the frontier to families, especially brothers, working together to establish and maintain their communities. The Sackett novels now number eighteen, and L'Amour has created other families, including the Talons, Chantrys and, in The Shadow Riders, the Travens. L'Amour's concentration on the family reinforces traditional middle-class values and the growing concern with the state of the family in American society of the 1970s and 1980s.

In an interview published along with The Shadow Riders, L'Amour explained his views on the importance of the family, past and present: "A lot of people think the family's going downhill. I don't think so at all ... In those days the family was a unit, you see, and they worked together . . . it gave a whole lot of unity and a whole lot...