From multi-award-winning historical fiction author Ashley E. Sweeney comes a family saga about the Irish immigrant experience spanning New York, Chicago, and Colorado so compelling that, USA Today best-selling author Kelli Estes says, “I read this story in one sitting.”Thirteen-year-old Mary Agnes Coyne, forced from her home in rural Ireland in 1886 after being accused of incest, endures a treacherous voyage across the Atlantic alone to an unknown life in ...

Feisty women spanning six centuries ...The twenty-three stories in this collection depict ordinary women—from the 1470s to the 1970s—who meet life’s challenges with fierce determination.An unhappy housewife in 1950s California gathers the courage to escape an abusive marriage. When local men are shipped off to WWI, a young Yorkshire woman joins others to keep a munitions factory at peak operation. As her land and way of life are threatened, a nineteenth century Chi...

“One of the top standalone Westerns in 2022.”—True West magazineArizona Territory, 1899. Ruby Fortune faces an untenable choice: murder her abusive husband or continue to live with bruises that never heal. One bullet is all it takes. Once known as “Girl Wonder” on the Wild West circuit, Ruby is now a single mother of four boys in her hometown of Jericho, an end-of-the-world mining town north of Tucson. Here, Ruby opens a roadside in...

From the award-winning author of Eliza Waite comes a gripping tale of adventure and survival based on the true story of the ill-fated Donner Party on their 2,200-mile trek on the Oregon–California Trail from 1846 to ’47.Nineteen-year-old Ada Weeks confronts danger and calamity along the hazard-filled journey to California. After a fateful decision that delays the overlanders more than a month, she—along with eighty-one other members of the Donner Party—finds herself strand...

Concoctions, treats, brews, and potions from another batch of feisty charactersWhether cooking for solace, scrounging for food, concocting medicine, or brewing poisons, the feisty women in these stories will keep you thirsting for more. Twenty-five tales will transport you far afield in time and place: third century Ireland, medieval Europe, twentieth-century Australia.Read your way from a hippie commune to a WW II internment camp in the Philippines; from a Renaissance pala...

2017 Nancy Pearl Book AwardAfter the tragic death of her husband and son on a remote island in Washington’s San Juan Islands, Eliza Waite joins the throng of miners, fortune hunters, business owners, con men, and prostitutes traveling north to the Klondike in the spring of 1898. When Eliza arrives in Skagway, Alaska, she has less than fifty dollars to her name and not a friend in the world—but with some savvy, and with the help of some unsavory characters, Eliza ope...

From the award-winning author of Eliza Waite comes a gripping tale of adventure and survival based on the true story of the ill-fated Donner Party on their 2,200-mile trek on the Oregon–California Trail from 1846 to ’47.Nineteen-year-old Ada Weeks confronts danger and calamity along the hazard-filled journey to California. After a fateful decision that delays the overlanders more than a month, she—along with eighty-one other members of the Donner Party—finds hersel...

From multi-award-winning historical fiction author Ashley E. Sweeney comes a family saga about the Irish immigrant experience spanning New York, Chicago, and Colorado so compelling that, USA Today bestselling author Kelli Estes says, "I read this story in one sitting."Thirteen-year-old Mary Agnes Coyne, forced from her home in rural Ireland in 1886 after being accused of incest, endures a treacherous voyage across the Atlantic alone to an unknown life in A...

“We were the dreamers of dreams, the singers of songs. We were the music makers. We would not hear nor play nor love without each other. This is a prelude to our experience, an overture to who we were and how we arrived on the shores of friendship.”Beginning in 1939 prewar Prague, While the Music Played focuses on the story of young Max Mueller, a curious bright romantic—a budding musician, piano tuner, and nascent journalist. Max is on the cusp of adolescence whe...

From the author of The School for German Brides and A Bakery in Paris, this captivating historical novel set in nineteenth-century Paris tells the story of Claire Eiffel, a woman who played a significant role in maintaining her family’s legacy and their iconic contributions to the city of Paris.Claire Eiffel, the beautiful, brilliant eldest daughter of the illustrious architect Gustave Eiffel, is doted upon with an education envied by many sons of...

Calla has one plan—college, and a life far from this house—until the money meant to get her there disappears.Washington State, 1964. Sixteen-year-old Calla Smith, the oldest of five, is done waiting for her father to notice what her stepmother has turned their home into. She's worked and raised her younger siblings since before she was old enough to hold a broom, counting down the years until she's gone for good. When the money set aside for her future is quietly s...

This program includes a bonus conversation with the author and is read by acclaimed narrator Bahni Turpin, whose voice listeners will recognize from The Hate U Give, Children of Blood and Bone, and The Underground Railroad.From author Sarah Bird comes the compelling, hidden story of Cathy Williams, a former slave and the only woman to ever serve with the legendary Buffalo Soldiers.“Here’s the first thing you need to know about Mis...