Jane Kirkpatrick
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Young Emma Wagner chafes at the constraints of Bethel colony, an 1850s religious community in Missouri that is determined to remain untainted by the concerns of the world. A passionate and independent thinker, she resents the limitations placed on women, who are expected to serve in quiet submission. In a community where dissent of any form is discouraged, Emma finds it difficult to rein in her tongue and often doesn't even try to do so, fueling the...
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Classically trained pianist and singer Natalie Curtis isolated herself for five years after a breakdown just before she was to debut with the New York Philharmonic. In 1902, her brother invites her to join him in the West to search for healing. What she finds are songs she'd never before encountered -- the haunting melodies, rhythms, and stories of Native Americans. But their music is under attack. The US government's Code of Offenses prohibits America's...
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Based on an incident on the Oregon Trail recorded by pioneer Ezra Meeker: "the meeting of eleven wagons returning and not a man left in the entire train; all had died, and been buried on the way, and the women returning alone." The novel explores the possible fate of these women, bonded by loss, growing in faith and fighting for survival.
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Eliza Spalding Warren was just a child when she was taken hostage by the Cayuse Indians during a massacre in 1847. Now the young mother of two children, Eliza faces a different kind of dislocation; her impulsive husband wants them to make a new start in another territory, which will mean leaving her beloved home and her departed mother's grave--and returning to the land of her captivity.
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Based on the life of Marie Dorion, the first mother to cross the Rocky Mountains and remain in the Northwest, A Name of Her Own is the fictionalized adventure account of a real woman’s fight to settle in a new landscape, survive in a nation at war, protect her sons and raise them well and, despite an abusive, alcoholic husband, keep her marriage together.
With two rambunctious young sons to raise, Marie Dorion refuses to be left behind...
With two rambunctious young sons to raise, Marie Dorion refuses to be left behind...
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A Story of Tender Truths About a Woman’s Desperate Efforts
to Shelter Her Family
Determined to raise her children on her own terms, Emma suddenly finds herself alone and pregnant with her third child, struggling to keep her family secure in the remote coastal forest of the Washington Territory. With loss and disappointment as her fuel, she kindles a fire that soon threatens to consume her, making a series of poor choices...
to Shelter Her Family
Determined to raise her children on her own terms, Emma suddenly finds herself alone and pregnant with her third child, struggling to keep her family secure in the remote coastal forest of the Washington Territory. With loss and disappointment as her fuel, she kindles a fire that soon threatens to consume her, making a series of poor choices...
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Widowed during the westward trek with their husbands, 12 women must now press on alone over the Sierra Nevadas and into California. When they settle in Shasta City, California, their lives become even further entwinded with each other. Susan, blind and windowed, struggles to care for her two sons and shuns all offers of help. Mazy is determined to unravel the mysteries of her husband's past life. Mei Ling, Naomi, and Zilah are the anxious "mail-rder...
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BASED ON A TRUE STORY
In a land occupied by foreign powers and torn by confusion and conflict, a mother seeks to weave her family and her past into a fabric that will not tear.
Their Lives Were Woven by Wars and Wilderness Places, and Tied by the Peace of Family and Faith.
As the 1840s bring conflict to the Pacific Northwest’s rugged Columbia Country, new challenges face Marie Dorion Venier Toupin: the wife, mother, and Ioway...
In a land occupied by foreign powers and torn by confusion and conflict, a mother seeks to weave her family and her past into a fabric that will not tear.
Their Lives Were Woven by Wars and Wilderness Places, and Tied by the Peace of Family and Faith.
As the 1840s bring conflict to the Pacific Northwest’s rugged Columbia Country, new challenges face Marie Dorion Venier Toupin: the wife, mother, and Ioway...
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In 1844, two years before the Donner Party, the Stevens-Murphy company left Missouri to be the first wagons into California through the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Mostly Irish Catholics, the party sought religious freedom and education in the mission-dominated land and enjoyed a safe journey--until October, when a heavy snowstorm forced difficult decisions. The first of many for young Mary Sullivan, newlywed Sarah Montgomery, the widow Ellen Murphy,...
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2012.
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"German immigrant and farm wife Hulda Klager possesses only an eighth-grade education and a burning desire to create something beautiful. What begins as a hobby to create an easy-peeling apple for her pies becomes Hulda's driving purpose: a time-consuming interest in plant hybridization that puts her at odds with family and community, as she challenges the early twentieth-century expectations for a simple housewife. Through the years, seasonal floods...
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In 1853, Abigail Scott was a 19-year-old school teacher in Oregon Territory when she married Ben Duniway. Marriage meant giving up on teaching, but Abigail always believed she was meant to be more than a good wife and mother. When financial mistakes and an injury force Ben to stop working, Abigail becomes the primary breadwinner for her growing family. What she sees as a working woman appalls her, and she devotes her life to fighting for the rights...
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Letitia holds nothing more dear than the papers that prove she is no longer a slave. They may not cause white folks to treat her like a human being, but at least they show she is free. She trusts in those words she cannot read--as she is beginning to trust in Davey Carson, an Irish immigrant cattleman who wants her to come west with him. Nancy Hawkins is loathe to leave her settled life for the treacherous journey by wagon train, but she is so deeply...
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1860s. Mollie Sheehan has spent much of her life striving to be a dutiful daughter and honor her father's wishes, even when doing so has led to one heartbreak after another. When romance blooms between her and Peter Ronan, Mollie finally allows herself to hope for a brighter future--until her father voices his disapproval of the match and moves her from Montana to California to ensure the breakup. When circumstances are at their bleakest, Mollie may...
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2011
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Nineteen-year-old Clara Estby is hauled by her mother, Helga, on a 7,000-mile walk from Spokane, Wash., to New York in 1896. The fashion industry is looking for promotion of the new, shorter dress for women; Helga is looking for a cash prize to save the family farm from foreclosure ... and Clara dreams of becoming a businesswoman.
16) Every fixed star
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Continuing the Tender Ties Historical Series, Every Fixed Star brings readers more of the dramatic, fictionalized account of Marie Dorion: the real-life woman who was the first mother to cross the Rocky Mountains and remain in the Northwest. In Book Two of the series, Marie learns the value of a tender heart, the faith of distant friends, and the act of holding life’s circumstances in open hands.
Following the family tragedy, the...
Following the family tragedy, the...
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Annie Shaw's goal is far from simple: become famous. But her second novel tanked, and her new editor wants her to re-write the ending of her latest work to ensure this one is more successful. In order to pursue fame and an elusive bestseller, she travels to Chicago, acquires a rambunctious dog, and participates in antics better suited to a television reality show than real life. Can Annie's best friends help her achieve her goals without destroying...
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Drama, adventure, and family struggles abound as three generations head west on the Oregon trail. When Tabitha Brown's son makes the fateful decision to leave Missouri and strike out for Oregon, she refuses to be left behind. Despite her son's concerns, Tabitha hires her own wagon to join the party. Along with her reluctant daughter and her ever-hopeful granddaughter, the intrepid Tabitha has her misgivings. But family ties are stronger than fear....
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Already well-versed in the natural healing properties of herbs and oils, Jennie Pickett longs to become a doctor. But the Oregon frontier of the 1870's doesn't approve of such innovations as women attending medical school. To leave grief and guilt behind, as well as support herself and her challenging young son, Jennie cares for an elderly woman using skills she's developed on her own. When her patient dies, Jennie discovers that her heart has become...
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In 1911, Carrie Strahorn wrote a memoir entitled Fifteen Thousand Miles by Stage, which shared some of the most exciting events of 25 years of traveling and shaping the American West with her husband, Robert Strahorn, a railroad promoter, investor, and writer. That is all fact. Everything She Didn't Say imagines Carrie nearly ten years later as she decides to write down what was really on her mind during those adventurous nomadic years. Certain that...