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...

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...

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...

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...

A battle-scarred father. A disillusioned daughter. Can a grieving widower rebuild his splintered family to find peace at last?South Dakota, 1949. WWII veteran John Smith longs for the life he lost after the tragic death of his wife during childbirth. But in the desperation to provide for his two small children, he is manipulated into an unsuitable marriage by a young woman with a dark neurosis. Tormented by his own grief and the ravages of war, John is blind to his...

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...

A memoir of a childhood homesteading in frontier Colorado: "A book from the heart . . . the stuff of the American dream" (The New York Times).In this memoir of a lost America, Hal Borland tells the story of his family's migration to eastern Colorado as homesteaders at the turn of the twentieth century. On an unsettled and unwelcoming prairie landscape, the Borlands build a house, plant crops, and eke out a meager existence. While life is difficult—and self...

Deadwood, Dakota Territory, was filled with luckless miners and diggers, as well as more than its share of lawlessness, and more often than not, there was nothing Marshal Fred Nolan and his two deputy marshals, Wentworth and Grubb, could do. So when a teen hustler, known as Gitalong because of his crippled leg, was hoorawed by a trio of Texas drovers, the law wasn’t called in. Besides, two strangers had come to Gitalong’s aid, confronting the drovers and forcing them to give Gitalong three...

Can she save herself from a witch's fate?Martha is a feisty and articulate young woman, the daughter of a wheelwright, living in a Herefordshire village in Elizabethan England. With no mother Martha's life is spent running her father's meagre household and helping out at the local school whilst longing to escape the confines and small-mindedness of a community driven by religious bigotry and poverty.As she is able to read and is well-versed in herbal reme...

A young British bride is caught up in her new family’s complicated history in this atmospheric novel set in the American South after the Civil War.When nineteen-year-old Stella marries Theron Renier, she has no idea what kind of clan she’s joined. Soon after their arrival at Illyria, the Reniers’ rambling beachside home, Theron is sent on a diplomatic mission, leaving Stella alone with his family.As she tries to settle into her new life, Stella quickly disc...

Claiming Their FutureFor the Thornton brothers, the Oklahoma Land Rush is the perfect opportunity to finally put down some roots. A new start, a new community-what more could preacher Elijah Thornton need? Not a wife-not after the pain of losing his fiancée. But something draws him to the pretty nurse whose eyes are clouded by trouble.Only by claiming her own homestead can Alice Hawthorne avoid an unwanted marriage. Even Oklahoma may not be far eno...