1801 – North Carolina
The very day Mark Allen Teed obtains his freedom from indenture, he embarks on a journey to fulfill the promise he made to Gwen Morgan two years earlier. To find her sister, Faye Morgan, he needs the assistance of an old horse and a street urchin he meets along the way. But even with their help, nothing goes as he had planned.
1798 – Ohio
An indentured servant since the age of fourteen, Gwen Morgan longs for freedom. Her greatest wish is to find the sister who was sold to another master when they arrived in North Carolina from Wales.
Then Master Whiteford offers Gwen her freedom at a price—she must agree to live a lie and join a settlement of Quakers relocating to the Northwest Territory of Ohio.
Thomas and Betsy Baldwin have buried their three children and face their elderly years alone until they open their home and hearts to Gwen. Their quiet and steadfast faith touches Gwen and causes her to question her deception.
Torn between her freedom and the truth, Gwen struggles to find her place among the Quakers she’s grown to love.
1867 – Texas
For Benjamin Warley, the end of the Civil War meant very little. He had nothing left in South Carolina. The life he should have inherited had been stripped from him. Meeting Joseph McCoy sends Ben into Texas to organize cattle herds to drive north to the railroad in Abilene, Kansas. A far cry from managing his father’s plantation, at least nobody knows him in Texas. He can put down roots and start a family on the southern plains, perhaps with the fetching red-haired woman at the diner.
Kenna McCrea raised her brood of brothers and sisters since she was twelve years old after the death of their mother. But her brothers are grown men, and she can’t keep everyone under the roof of their diner once rumors of the massive cattle drives reach San Antonio. But at least her father refused the offer to join a cattle drive and run its chuckwagon.
Then McCoy demands Ben send one more herd north. Wranglers are scarce, many having stayed in Kansas. Ben needs to hire both of Miss McCrea’s brothers again, even knowing how much it will distress her. Then a trio rides in who served in the cavalry with Ben. Three men who know his secret.
1867 – Missouri
Samuel Hickman volunteered to fight for his country and talked his younger brother into joining him. They’d ridden for honor and glory. The realities of war, however, convinced Hick to avoid people and their entanglements.
Susannah Piper lost everyone she loved in the war, her Confederate father and brothers, and even her Yankee husband. Left with only her thick Georgia drawl and a contrary mule, her sights are set on the state of Oregon—as far from the battlefields and prejudices as she can get.
But when Susannah arrives in desperation at Hick’s camp one dark night, even he can’t turn her away. He’s heading to Wyoming, not Oregon, but it’s in the right direction, and Susannah doesn’t plan on being left behind. The resulting clash of North and South may spark another type of civil war.
1866 – Pennsylvania
Russ Fields gave a lot to his country. He lost a brother and half his face to preserve the Union, only to come home and lose his beloved younger sister. When he writes to her friend in Pennsylvania with the devastating news, he never expects an answer.
Emmie Mason lost her fiancé during the Civil War, and her position at the hospital after the fighting stopped. But her greatest loss was her dearest friend to the fickle disease of influenza.
Letters of condolence begin something else, something special, between two people who have lost so much. But can the written word overcome stark reality?
1763 – New York
Abigail Aldridge’s life in Boston was difficult. Her inability to converse with the fluid grace of her societal peers made her an outcast, a spinster sister living with her step-brother and his wife. When she concocts a way to join her uncle at the British outpost of Fort Niagara, she has no idea what dangers lurk at the edge of civilization.
Working at the fort, Koyengquahtah, a Seneca scout for the British army known as Koyen, watches the white women carried ashore from the boat. Soldiers are one thing, but women mean families. Families that plan to stay on Seneca land. It sparks in him a rebellion against the changes threatening to overwhelm his people and their way of life.
When Abigail befriends the sisters of Koyen, their paths cross and their initial distrust of each other grows into a grudging admiration. But violence erupts as two cultures clash, fueled by the Ottawa leader to the west, Pontiac.
1763 – Michigan
The daughter of a fur trader, Laurette Pettigrew grew up in the northern frontier. Hers is a lonely existence avoiding the British in the fort and the French voyagers who populated the area in the summer months. The local Ojibwe are her only friends.
Sickly and weak, Henry Bedlow arrives at Fort Michilimackinac against his will. He wore the red coat and shouldered a musket, but in his heart, he wasn’t a soldier. But his choices were to join the army or prison.
Their chance meeting changes everything. Will a deadly clash of cultures keep them from finding happiness?
Lumberjacks and Ladies Work Together to Build America
Struggling to remain independent in the 1800s, four women reluctantly open up to help from lumberjacks—and love.
All That Glitters by Candice Sue Patterson
1851—Maine
Winifred finds herself running the family lobstering business when her father and brothers join the California gold rush. Will she stubbornly reject help from a local lumberjack?
Winter Roses by Pegg Thomas
1865—Michigan
Elizabeth cooks for a logging crew, determined to escape that life for something better, until reoccurring gifts capture her attention. Will she follow her dreams—or her heart?
Not for Love by Naomi Musch
1881—Wisconsin
Widowed, Maggie seeks a husband—in name only—from the logging camps, but the man who answers her letter is a surprise. Can she open her heart to love again?
Undercover Logger by Jennifer Lamont Leo
1890—Idaho
Carrie will not sell her timberland and allows the banker’s nephew to sign onto her logging crew to ferret out the reason she is losing money at an alarming rate. Will truth be revealed to her forlorn heart?
1763 – Michigan
Maggie Kerr is a survivor. Taken captive at age eleven during the battle at Fort McCord, she’s learned to adapt and to trust no one. Promised in marriage to a Huron warrior she fears, Maggie risks everything in a run for her freedom.
Content to ignore the rising animosity between the British and the Ottawa villagers he calls his friends, Baptiste Geroux plants his fields, limping behind his oxen and waiting for his brother to return from the west. Until the day a woman in danger arrives on his farm.
When more tribes join Pontiac in an all-out war, Maggie and Baptiste take refuge at Fort Detroit. He’s distrusted for being French. She’s scorned for being raised by the Hurons. Together they forge a fragile bond—until Maggie’s past threatens their chance at happiness.
1763 – Pennsylvania
Sarah Feight has her life planned with a loving husband, a promising new settlement, and big dreams to shape the future of trade on Pennsylvania’s frontier. An Indian attack at dawn changes everything.
When he pulls his freight wagons into Fort Pitt, Leith McCully never dreams he’ll be conscripted into the militia and ordered to defend the fort. Worried about trader friends on his delivery route, he rides to their settlement and returns with Sarah, the only survivor.
Fort Pitt is crowded to twice its capacity with the settlers who have taken refuge there and surrounded by the rising smoke of burned-out settlements. Tempers flare, disease breaks out, and the constant fear of the next attack has everyone on edge.
Cully keeps an eye on Sarah because he feels responsible for her. And, though he doesn’t admit as much, she tugs at his heart. Sarah sees Cully as the last link to her past. A friend of her husband’s family. She’s going to need someone she can trust, and she trusts Cully. Her rescuer.
Are trust and admiration enough to help them survive the siege and its devastating consequences? Is there any hope for a future beyond?
1702 – Connecticut
Yarrow Fenn, the talented spinster sister, was passed over when her intended walked out on her years before. She’s content with her life – for the most part – until Peter Maltby arrives in town. A journeyman fuller, Peter comes to Milford, Connecticut, not to woo the young women, but to rise to the rank of master fuller and return to Boston for some unfinished business. When their lives intersect over an orphan lamb, sparks are kindled. But their budding romance will have to survive revealed secrets when someone else shows up in Milford.
1861 – Wyoming
After her mother’s death, Alannah Fagan is left in the care of a brutal stepfather. When he demands that she marry his youngest son, her only hope is to escape. Together with Conn Fagan, her younger brother, she flees their westbound wagon train with no plan other than to survive.
Stewart McCann left northern Virginia behind to take the stationmaster job at the Pony Express’s Horseshoe Station in Wyoming territory at the start of the Civil War. He has struggled with that decision ever since. When he discovers a battered young woman and her brother, he is once more thrust into the midst of a fight.
Can two wounded hearts—with the help of a one-eyed Pony Express mount—support each other when faced with decisions that could cost them both dearly?
1883 – Michigan
Anna Wilson is determined to be the first female lighthouse keeper at Thunder Bay Island in Lake Huron. As her uncle nears his retirement, she makes herself indispensable at the lighthouse, doing everything but manning the tower.
Russian immigrant Maksim Ivanov is shipwrecked on an island when the James Thompson runs aground in a storm. The shipping line rescues the crew, but Maksim is stranded. At least there are a pair of old aunties who speak his language. He works to help the elderly lighthouse keeper, earning his way until he can get off the island.
The handsome and capable newcomer could steal Anna’s dream out from under her. Or he could provide a new one.
