Akron Public Library

Boone's Lick transports the reader to the era about which McMurtry writes better and more shrewdly than anyone else. Told with McMurtry's unique blend of historical fact and sheer storytelling genius, the novel follows the Cecil family's arduous journey by riverboat and wagon from Boone's Lick, Missouri, to Fort Phil Kearny in Wyoming. Fifteen-year-old Shay narrates, describing the journey that begins when his Ma, Mary Margaret, decides to hunt down...

Ruby Torvald has turned Dove House, the scandalous inheritance her father left to her and her sister, into a respectable establishment. Her newest boarder is Pearl Hossfuss, a twenty-two-year-old schoolteacher from Chicago. Hiding scars within and without, Pearl has given up hope that any man would want to marry her. Her father has his own ideas, insisting she marry his clerk, a widower with five children. So Pearl flees to Dakotah Territory in response...

In a dramatic new series, a host of characters is drawn to the rugged Yukon to start life anew. Fleeing an arranged marriage, Grace escapes to Alaska. Peter, a widower, must choose between parenting his young children and following his dream, while Karen chooses to strike out on her own in search of a missing family member.

Dove House has burned to the ground, Ruby and Rand have married, and now Rand's ranch is home for them all. Ruby's younger sister, Opal, is taking to ranch life like a hummingbird to sugar water. She can outshoot, outride, and work as hard as any cowboy on the place. Ranching has clearly stolen her heart. When a young minister arrives from the East, he is amazed to find himself falling in love with Opal, even though she is not a woman anyone would...

"Based on an actual historical event but told through fictional diaries, this is the story of a remarkable woman who travels west in 1875 and marries the chief of the Cheyenne Nation. One thousand white women begins with May Dodd's journey west into the unknown. Yet the unknown is a far better fate than the life she left behind. Committed to an insane asylum by her blue-blood family for the crime of loving a man beneath her station, May finds that...

When Sierra discovers her young ancestor's handcrafted quilt and reads her journal, she finds their lives are very similar. By following her ancestor's example, she learns to surrender to God's sovereignty and unconditional love.

Two years after the death of her husband, Missie knows that it is time to move on. She heads home with her son to be near her parents and to return to teaching. Certain she will never find love again, Missie redirects her feelings and when the "orphan train" arrives in town, she adopts Belinda, a feisty young teenager who's arrived with a secret. As Missie struggles with raising Belinda, she finds she is falling for the local sheriff who might be...

Wanted: Women with religious upbringing, high morals, and a strong sense of adventure, willing to marry decent, God-fearing men. Applicants may apply by mail. Must allow at least two months for an answer.
Like her sister before her, June leaves her Michigan home to embrace her future as a mail-order bride to a young Washington State pastor. But from the start, nothing works out as June expects. Caught up in her fiancé's vision for an elaborate...

Upon arriving in Pintan, Arizona, Jillian Danvers is confronted with the magnitude of the task before her. Though an exact reflection of her twin, Judith, assuming her sister's identity is anything but easy. Not only are her attempts to fumble her way through the strict regulations and routines of the Harvey House feeble at best, Jillian finds she must also fend off the well-meaning acts of matchmaking on the part of her mother. Inadvertently discovering...

"Adelaide Henry carries an enormous steamer trunk with her wherever she goes. It's locked at all times. Because when the trunk opens, people around Adelaide start to disappear. The year is 1915, and Adelaide is in trouble. Her secret sin killed her parents, forcing her to flee California in a hellfire rush and make her way to Montana as a homesteader. Dragging the trunk with her at every stop, she will become one of the "lone women" taking advantage...