Central Kansas Library System

Sixteen Civil War widows living in St. Louis respond to a series of meetings conducted by a land speculator who lures them west by promising "prime homesteads" in a "booming community." Unbeknownst to them, the speculator's true motive is to find an excuse to bring women to the fledging community of Plum Grove, Nebraska, in hopes they will accept marriage proposals shortly after their arrival! Sparks fly when these unsuspecting widows meet the men...

Cather presents the story of the Nebraska prairie. Alexandra Bergson, daughter of Swedish immigrant farmers, is devoted to the land and suffers the hardships of prairie life.

Ariana loves her life-her parents, her little town, her job as the town's schoolteacher, her students. But one evening after classes are done and she prepares to hurry home before a blizzard hits, her whole life changes in an instant.

Her life was like a bad dream that kept getting worse. Until the Lord awakened her to a future of hope. Julianna Ortiz gave up her hopes for a perfect life long ago. She's 32, and alone, and she's accepted that. For how could she ask anyone to share in the absurdity that has become her life? Her twin brother is languishing in a Mexican prison. His fellow gang members are constantly harassing her. And her father, who was absent for so long, has finally...

"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...

Emma and her husband leave a close-knit religious community to work in Washington Territory, but when Emma finds herself alone and pregnant with her third child, she is left wondering if an angry God has abandoned her to the consequences of her willfulness.

The dream of independence is in sight ofr the citizens of Texas - and for Jerusalem Ann and her family.

Josephine Nordegren is one of three sisters who grew up nearly wild in southwestern Colorado. She has the archery skills of Robin Hood and the curiosity of the Little Mermaid, fascinated by but locked away from the forbidden outside world--a world she's been raised to believe killed her parents. When David Warden, a rancher, brings in a herd much too close to the girls' secret home, her older sister especially is frightened, but Jo is too interested...

"Having been committed to an insane asylum by her blue-blood family for the crime of loving a man beneath her station, May finds that her only hope for freedom and redemption is to participate in a secret government program whereby women from "civilized" society become the brides of Cheyenne warriors. What follows is a series of breathtaking adventures--May's brief, passionate romance with the gallant young army captain John Bourke; her marriage to...