I recently finished the The Genesis of Shannara prequels by Terry Brooks. Fun reads if you've slogged through the rest of the Terry Brooks universe. He included alot of flashbacks for character development that were tiresome at points. His style of splitting up the main characters into competing quests and then rotating through them round robin keeps the flow of the books exciting, though it becomes an expected aspect of his writing. I also just read through My Word is my Bond by Roger Moore. It was a fun book detailing the experiences of an English actor.
I'm planning on reading Westward Ho! a novel from 1855 by Charles Kingsley. Which isn't about manifest destiny, but rather about Spanish Conquistadors, English Privateers, etc. I also am looking to read through the short story the The Corsican Brothers by Alexandre Dumas.