Based on true events, this compelling survival story by award-winning novelist Jane Kirkpatrick is full of grit and endurance. Beset by storms, bad timing, and desperate decisions, 8 women, 17 children, and one man must outlast winter in the middle of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in 1844. 1844. The Stevens-Murphy company left Missouri to be the first wagons into California through the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Mostly Irish Catholics, the party sought...

"Already well-versed in the natural healing properties of herbs and oils, Jennie Pickett longs to become a doctor. But the Oregon frontier of the 1870s doesn't approve of such innovations as women attending medical school. To leave grief and guilt behind, as well as support herself and her challenging young son, Jennie cares for an elderly woman using skills she's developed on her own. When her patient dies, Jennie discovers that her heart has become...

In April 1852, Mazy Bacon's husband, Jeremy, sells their farm, buys a wagon and some cattle, announces that they are heading West, and invites her mother along for the ride. A shocked Mazy has no choice but to follow and hope God will hear her pleas to return home. As the small family journeys westward and joins a wagon train heading for the Oregon Territory, the strengths and weaknesses of each person are dragged glaringly into the spotlight.

Nineteen-year-old Clara Estby is hauled by her mother, Helga, on a 7,000-mile walk from Spokane, Wash., to New York in 1896. The fashion industry is looking for promotion of the new, shorter dress for women; Helga is looking for a cash prize to save the family farm from foreclosure ... and Clara dreams of becoming a businesswoman.