Author: Laura Pritchett
Publisher: Milkweed Editions
ISBN: 1571318550
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 105
Book Description
Winner of the PEN USA Award for Fiction. “An admirable, steely-eyed collection of stories and vignettes featuring a family of ranchers.”—Publishers Weekly On Hell’s Bottom Ranch, a section of land below the Front Range, there are women like Renny who prefer a “little Hell swirled with their Heaven” and men like Ben, her husband, who’s “gotten used to smoothing over Renny’s excesses.” There is a daughter who maybe plays it too safe and a daughter plagued by only “half-wanting” what life has to offer. The ranch has been the site of births and deaths of both cattle and children, as well as moments of amazing harmony and clear vision. “Set in the unpredictable West, these stories remind us that we cannot escape the messiness and obsessions of ordinary life.”—Patricia Henley, author of Hummingbird House “Displays the talent of a brilliant, new writer.”—The Rocky Mountain News “With the rugged beauty of the Rocky Mountains as backdrop, Pritchett’s spare yet richly evocative stories portray the stark reality of life on a Colorado cattle ranch, where three generations of one family tend the land and animals, devoting and losing themselves to an existence few would understand or choose to follow . . . Regardless of whether the songs she hears are sung by a meadowlark or a jailbird, Pritchett excels at juxtaposing the sensuous with the severe, the rapturous with the repugnant.”—Booklist “The stories jump back and forth in time, but their message is clear: this family’s ties are as quixotic, fierce, and enduring as the land that binds them together.”—School Library Journal
Hell's Bottom, Colorado
Author: Laura Pritchett
Publisher: Milkweed Editions
ISBN: 1571318550
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 105
Book Description
Winner of the PEN USA Award for Fiction. “An admirable, steely-eyed collection of stories and vignettes featuring a family of ranchers.”—Publishers Weekly On Hell’s Bottom Ranch, a section of land below the Front Range, there are women like Renny who prefer a “little Hell swirled with their Heaven” and men like Ben, her husband, who’s “gotten used to smoothing over Renny’s excesses.” There is a daughter who maybe plays it too safe and a daughter plagued by only “half-wanting” what life has to offer. The ranch has been the site of births and deaths of both cattle and children, as well as moments of amazing harmony and clear vision. “Set in the unpredictable West, these stories remind us that we cannot escape the messiness and obsessions of ordinary life.”—Patricia Henley, author of Hummingbird House “Displays the talent of a brilliant, new writer.”—The Rocky Mountain News “With the rugged beauty of the Rocky Mountains as backdrop, Pritchett’s spare yet richly evocative stories portray the stark reality of life on a Colorado cattle ranch, where three generations of one family tend the land and animals, devoting and losing themselves to an existence few would understand or choose to follow . . . Regardless of whether the songs she hears are sung by a meadowlark or a jailbird, Pritchett excels at juxtaposing the sensuous with the severe, the rapturous with the repugnant.”—Booklist “The stories jump back and forth in time, but their message is clear: this family’s ties are as quixotic, fierce, and enduring as the land that binds them together.”—School Library Journal
Publisher: Milkweed Editions
ISBN: 1571318550
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 105
Book Description
Winner of the PEN USA Award for Fiction. “An admirable, steely-eyed collection of stories and vignettes featuring a family of ranchers.”—Publishers Weekly On Hell’s Bottom Ranch, a section of land below the Front Range, there are women like Renny who prefer a “little Hell swirled with their Heaven” and men like Ben, her husband, who’s “gotten used to smoothing over Renny’s excesses.” There is a daughter who maybe plays it too safe and a daughter plagued by only “half-wanting” what life has to offer. The ranch has been the site of births and deaths of both cattle and children, as well as moments of amazing harmony and clear vision. “Set in the unpredictable West, these stories remind us that we cannot escape the messiness and obsessions of ordinary life.”—Patricia Henley, author of Hummingbird House “Displays the talent of a brilliant, new writer.”—The Rocky Mountain News “With the rugged beauty of the Rocky Mountains as backdrop, Pritchett’s spare yet richly evocative stories portray the stark reality of life on a Colorado cattle ranch, where three generations of one family tend the land and animals, devoting and losing themselves to an existence few would understand or choose to follow . . . Regardless of whether the songs she hears are sung by a meadowlark or a jailbird, Pritchett excels at juxtaposing the sensuous with the severe, the rapturous with the repugnant.”—Booklist “The stories jump back and forth in time, but their message is clear: this family’s ties are as quixotic, fierce, and enduring as the land that binds them together.”—School Library Journal
Sky Bridge
Author: Laura Pritchett
Publisher: Milkweed Editions
ISBN: 1571318569
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 235
Book Description
A young woman who offers to raise her teenage sister’s baby gets more than she bargained for in “a moving story about love, duty, and family” (Publishers Weekly). A supermarket clerk in a small dusty Colorado town, twenty-two-year-old Libby is full of dreams but lacks the means to pursue them. When her younger sister Tess becomes pregnant, Libby convinces her not to have an abortion by promising to raise the child herself. But then Tess takes off after the baby is born and Libby finds that her new role puts her dreams that much further away. Her already haphazard life becomes ever more chaotic. The baby’s father, a Christian rodeo rider, suddenly demands custody. Libby loses her job, her boyfriend abandons her, and her own mother harps on how stupid she was to make that promise to Tess. Worse, her sister’s reckless new life could put Libby herself in danger. Not just a story of a single mother overcoming obstacles, Sky Bridge is a complex novel from a PEN Award winner that leaves readers with a fresh understanding of what it means to inhabit a world in which dreams die, and are sometimes reborn. “In this spare yet haunting portrait of the American West, Pritchett’s powerful, poetic voice speaks with clarity, wisdom, and passion about country, family, and one young woman’s majestic spirit.” —Booklist “A superb writer.” —Library Journal
Publisher: Milkweed Editions
ISBN: 1571318569
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 235
Book Description
A young woman who offers to raise her teenage sister’s baby gets more than she bargained for in “a moving story about love, duty, and family” (Publishers Weekly). A supermarket clerk in a small dusty Colorado town, twenty-two-year-old Libby is full of dreams but lacks the means to pursue them. When her younger sister Tess becomes pregnant, Libby convinces her not to have an abortion by promising to raise the child herself. But then Tess takes off after the baby is born and Libby finds that her new role puts her dreams that much further away. Her already haphazard life becomes ever more chaotic. The baby’s father, a Christian rodeo rider, suddenly demands custody. Libby loses her job, her boyfriend abandons her, and her own mother harps on how stupid she was to make that promise to Tess. Worse, her sister’s reckless new life could put Libby herself in danger. Not just a story of a single mother overcoming obstacles, Sky Bridge is a complex novel from a PEN Award winner that leaves readers with a fresh understanding of what it means to inhabit a world in which dreams die, and are sometimes reborn. “In this spare yet haunting portrait of the American West, Pritchett’s powerful, poetic voice speaks with clarity, wisdom, and passion about country, family, and one young woman’s majestic spirit.” —Booklist “A superb writer.” —Library Journal
Stars Go Blue
Author: Laura Pritchett
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 1619023903
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 118
Book Description
Laura Pritchett is an award–winning author who has quickly become one of the west's defining literary voices. We first met hardscrabble ranchers Renny and Ben Cross in Laura's debut collection, and now in Stars Go Blue, they are estranged, elderly spouses living on opposite ends of their sprawling ranch, faced with the particular decline of a fading farm and Ben's struggle with Alzheimer's disease. He is just on the cusp of dementia, able to recognize he is sick but unable to do anything about it —the notes he leaves in his pockets and around the house to remind him of himself, his family, and his responsibilities are no longer as helpful as they used to be. Watching his estranged wife forced into care–taking and brought to her breaking point, Ben decides to leave his life with whatever dignity and grace remains. As Ben makes his decision, a new horrible truth comes to light: Ray, the abusive husband of their late daughter is being released from prison early. This opens old wounds in Ben, his wife, his surviving daughter, and four grandchildren. Branded with a need for justice, Ben must act before his mind leaves him, and sets off during a brutal snowstorm to confront the man who murdered his daughter. Renny, realizing he is missing, sets off to either stop or witness her husband's act of vengeance. Stars Go Blue is a triumphant novel of the American family, buffered by the workings of a ranch and the music offered by the landscape and animal life upon it.
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 1619023903
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 118
Book Description
Laura Pritchett is an award–winning author who has quickly become one of the west's defining literary voices. We first met hardscrabble ranchers Renny and Ben Cross in Laura's debut collection, and now in Stars Go Blue, they are estranged, elderly spouses living on opposite ends of their sprawling ranch, faced with the particular decline of a fading farm and Ben's struggle with Alzheimer's disease. He is just on the cusp of dementia, able to recognize he is sick but unable to do anything about it —the notes he leaves in his pockets and around the house to remind him of himself, his family, and his responsibilities are no longer as helpful as they used to be. Watching his estranged wife forced into care–taking and brought to her breaking point, Ben decides to leave his life with whatever dignity and grace remains. As Ben makes his decision, a new horrible truth comes to light: Ray, the abusive husband of their late daughter is being released from prison early. This opens old wounds in Ben, his wife, his surviving daughter, and four grandchildren. Branded with a need for justice, Ben must act before his mind leaves him, and sets off during a brutal snowstorm to confront the man who murdered his daughter. Renny, realizing he is missing, sets off to either stop or witness her husband's act of vengeance. Stars Go Blue is a triumphant novel of the American family, buffered by the workings of a ranch and the music offered by the landscape and animal life upon it.
Great Colorado Bear Stories
Author: Laura Pritchett
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1606390597
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 263
Book Description
Great Colorado Bear Stories is an incredible look at Colorado’s bears, including the grizzlies that once roamed the state and the black bears that still do. Carefully researched and skillfully written by award-winning Colorado writer Laura Pritchett, these stories describe the fascinating science and natural history of bears along with gripping tales of deadly and near-death encounters with people. Some stories are historical, such as Roosevelt’s hunting, Pike’s exploring, and the death of Colorado’s last grizzly. Other tales are contemporary—backyard bruins in the suburbs, close encounters in the wilderness, and dedicated wildlife scientists who crawl deep inside dens with the bears. These stories involve hikers, ranchers, hunters, historians, Native Americans, and regular folks—at the moments their lives have intersected with the great bruins of Colorado.
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1606390597
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 263
Book Description
Great Colorado Bear Stories is an incredible look at Colorado’s bears, including the grizzlies that once roamed the state and the black bears that still do. Carefully researched and skillfully written by award-winning Colorado writer Laura Pritchett, these stories describe the fascinating science and natural history of bears along with gripping tales of deadly and near-death encounters with people. Some stories are historical, such as Roosevelt’s hunting, Pike’s exploring, and the death of Colorado’s last grizzly. Other tales are contemporary—backyard bruins in the suburbs, close encounters in the wilderness, and dedicated wildlife scientists who crawl deep inside dens with the bears. These stories involve hikers, ranchers, hunters, historians, Native Americans, and regular folks—at the moments their lives have intersected with the great bruins of Colorado.
Insight Guides: Colorado
Author: Insight Guides
Publisher: Apa Publications (UK) Limited
ISBN: 1780058047
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 753
Book Description
Insight Guides: Inspiring your next adventure Inside Insight Guide Colorado: Soaring mountains, world-class skiing, dude ranches and vibrant cities lure travellers to Colorado, America's alpine heartland. Whether you're interested in outdoor sports or heritage tourism, the new edition of Insight Guide Colorado provides both practical advice and a wealth of inspiration to help you plan the perfect trip. - This comprehensive, full-colour guide is full of inspiring travel ideas, with fascinating coverage of both the state's culture - including cowboys, heritage tourism and ghost towns - and places to visit, such as forward-looking Boulder, chic Aspen, the stunning landscapes of Rocky Mountain National Park and the pueblos of Mesa Verde. - The Best of Colorado section gives you our pick of the state's top attractions, while vivid photography brings the dramatic landscapes to life. - All major sights are cross-referenced with full-colour maps, and the travel tips section provides essential information on how to organise your trip, plus our selection of the best hotels and restaurants. About Insight Guides: Insight Guides has over 40 years' experience of publishing high-quality, visual travel guides. We produce around 400 full-colour print guide books and maps as well as picture-packed eBooks to meet different travellers' needs. Insight Guides' unique combination of beautiful travel photography and focus on history and culture together create a unique visual reference and planning tool to inspire your next adventure.
Publisher: Apa Publications (UK) Limited
ISBN: 1780058047
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 753
Book Description
Insight Guides: Inspiring your next adventure Inside Insight Guide Colorado: Soaring mountains, world-class skiing, dude ranches and vibrant cities lure travellers to Colorado, America's alpine heartland. Whether you're interested in outdoor sports or heritage tourism, the new edition of Insight Guide Colorado provides both practical advice and a wealth of inspiration to help you plan the perfect trip. - This comprehensive, full-colour guide is full of inspiring travel ideas, with fascinating coverage of both the state's culture - including cowboys, heritage tourism and ghost towns - and places to visit, such as forward-looking Boulder, chic Aspen, the stunning landscapes of Rocky Mountain National Park and the pueblos of Mesa Verde. - The Best of Colorado section gives you our pick of the state's top attractions, while vivid photography brings the dramatic landscapes to life. - All major sights are cross-referenced with full-colour maps, and the travel tips section provides essential information on how to organise your trip, plus our selection of the best hotels and restaurants. About Insight Guides: Insight Guides has over 40 years' experience of publishing high-quality, visual travel guides. We produce around 400 full-colour print guide books and maps as well as picture-packed eBooks to meet different travellers' needs. Insight Guides' unique combination of beautiful travel photography and focus on history and culture together create a unique visual reference and planning tool to inspire your next adventure.
Insight Guides Colorado (Travel Guide eBook)
Author: Insight Guides
Publisher: Apa Publications (UK) Limited
ISBN: 1786716941
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 627
Book Description
The Rocky Mountain State of Colorado offers soaring peaks, world-class skiing and vibrant cities that lure travellers from all over the world to America's alpine heartland. Be inspired to visit by the new edition of Insight Guide Colorado, a comprehensive full-colour guide to the state. Inside Insight Guide Colorado: A fully-overhauled new edition by our expert Colorado-based author. Stunning photography that brings this fascinating country and its people to life. Highlights of the state's top attractions, including the Rocky Mountains, Denver and the San Luis Valley. Descriptive accounts cover the whole state from the Mesa Verde to the Eastern Plains. Detailed, high-quality maps throughout will help you get around and travel tips give you all the essential information for planning a memorable trip. Insight Guide Colorado now includes the Walking Eye app, free to download to smartphones and tablets on purchase of the book. The app includes our independent selection of the best hotels and restaurants, plus activity, event and shopping listings. About Insight Guides: Insight Guides has over 40 years' experience of publishing high-quality, visual travel guides. We produce around 400 full-colour print guide books and maps as well as picture-packed eBooks to meet different travellers' needs. Insight Guides' unique combination of beautiful travel photography and focus on history and culture together create a unique visual reference and planning tool to inspire your next adventure. 'Insight Guides has spawned many imitators but is still the best of its type.' - Wanderlust Magazine
Publisher: Apa Publications (UK) Limited
ISBN: 1786716941
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 627
Book Description
The Rocky Mountain State of Colorado offers soaring peaks, world-class skiing and vibrant cities that lure travellers from all over the world to America's alpine heartland. Be inspired to visit by the new edition of Insight Guide Colorado, a comprehensive full-colour guide to the state. Inside Insight Guide Colorado: A fully-overhauled new edition by our expert Colorado-based author. Stunning photography that brings this fascinating country and its people to life. Highlights of the state's top attractions, including the Rocky Mountains, Denver and the San Luis Valley. Descriptive accounts cover the whole state from the Mesa Verde to the Eastern Plains. Detailed, high-quality maps throughout will help you get around and travel tips give you all the essential information for planning a memorable trip. Insight Guide Colorado now includes the Walking Eye app, free to download to smartphones and tablets on purchase of the book. The app includes our independent selection of the best hotels and restaurants, plus activity, event and shopping listings. About Insight Guides: Insight Guides has over 40 years' experience of publishing high-quality, visual travel guides. We produce around 400 full-colour print guide books and maps as well as picture-packed eBooks to meet different travellers' needs. Insight Guides' unique combination of beautiful travel photography and focus on history and culture together create a unique visual reference and planning tool to inspire your next adventure. 'Insight Guides has spawned many imitators but is still the best of its type.' - Wanderlust Magazine
The Blue Hour
Author: Douglas Kennedy
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1501139991
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 368
Book Description
From the #1 internationally bestselling author of The Moment and Five Days comes “the best book about Morocco since The Sheltering Sky. Completely absorbing and atmospheric” (Philip Kerr). Robin knew Paul wasn’t perfect. But he said they were so lucky to have found each other, and she believed it was true. She is a meticulous accountant, almost forty. He is an artist and university professor, twenty years older. When Paul suggests a month in Morocco, where he once lived and worked, a place where the modern meets the medieval, Robin reluctantly agrees. Once immersed into the swirling, white hot exotica of a walled city on the North African Atlantic coast, Robin finds herself acclimatizing to its wonderful strangeness. Paul is everything she wants him to be—passionate, talented, knowledgeable. She is convinced that it is here she will finally become pregnant. But then Paul suddenly disappears, and Robin finds herself the prime suspect in the police inquiry. As her understanding of the truth starts to unravel, Robin lurches from the crumbling art deco of Casablanca to the daunting Sahara, caught in an increasingly terrifying spiral from which there is no easy escape. With his acclaimed ability to write thought-provoking page-turners, Douglas Kennedy takes readers into a world where only Patricia Highsmith has ever dared. The Blue Hour is a roller-coaster journey into a heart of darkness that asks the question: What would you do if your life depended on it?
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1501139991
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 368
Book Description
From the #1 internationally bestselling author of The Moment and Five Days comes “the best book about Morocco since The Sheltering Sky. Completely absorbing and atmospheric” (Philip Kerr). Robin knew Paul wasn’t perfect. But he said they were so lucky to have found each other, and she believed it was true. She is a meticulous accountant, almost forty. He is an artist and university professor, twenty years older. When Paul suggests a month in Morocco, where he once lived and worked, a place where the modern meets the medieval, Robin reluctantly agrees. Once immersed into the swirling, white hot exotica of a walled city on the North African Atlantic coast, Robin finds herself acclimatizing to its wonderful strangeness. Paul is everything she wants him to be—passionate, talented, knowledgeable. She is convinced that it is here she will finally become pregnant. But then Paul suddenly disappears, and Robin finds herself the prime suspect in the police inquiry. As her understanding of the truth starts to unravel, Robin lurches from the crumbling art deco of Casablanca to the daunting Sahara, caught in an increasingly terrifying spiral from which there is no easy escape. With his acclaimed ability to write thought-provoking page-turners, Douglas Kennedy takes readers into a world where only Patricia Highsmith has ever dared. The Blue Hour is a roller-coaster journey into a heart of darkness that asks the question: What would you do if your life depended on it?
Montana 1948
Author: Larry Watson
Publisher: Milkweed Editions
ISBN: 1571318038
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 193
Book Description
The tragic tale of a Montana family ripped apart by scandal and murder: “a significant and elegant addition to the fiction of the American West” (Washington Post). In the summer of 1948, twelve-year-old David Hayden witnessed and experienced a series of cataclysmic events that would forever change the way he saw his family. The Haydens had been pillars of their small Montana town: David’s father was the town sheriff; his uncle Frank was a war hero and respected doctor. But the family’s solid foundation was suddenly shattered by a bombshell revelation. The Hayden’s Sioux housekeeper, Marie Little Soldier, tells them that Frank has been sexually assaulting his female Indian patients for years—and that she herself was his latest victim. As the tragic fallout unravels around David, he learns that truth is not what one believes it to be, that power is abused, and that sometimes one has to choose between loyalty and justice. Winner of the Milkweed National Fiction Prize
Publisher: Milkweed Editions
ISBN: 1571318038
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 193
Book Description
The tragic tale of a Montana family ripped apart by scandal and murder: “a significant and elegant addition to the fiction of the American West” (Washington Post). In the summer of 1948, twelve-year-old David Hayden witnessed and experienced a series of cataclysmic events that would forever change the way he saw his family. The Haydens had been pillars of their small Montana town: David’s father was the town sheriff; his uncle Frank was a war hero and respected doctor. But the family’s solid foundation was suddenly shattered by a bombshell revelation. The Hayden’s Sioux housekeeper, Marie Little Soldier, tells them that Frank has been sexually assaulting his female Indian patients for years—and that she herself was his latest victim. As the tragic fallout unravels around David, he learns that truth is not what one believes it to be, that power is abused, and that sometimes one has to choose between loyalty and justice. Winner of the Milkweed National Fiction Prize
Playing with Wildfire
Author: Laura Pritchett
Publisher: Torrey House Press
ISBN: 1948814900
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 188
Book Description
"An immersive story of a changing landscape, innovatively told." —KIRKUS When a wildfire bears down on a mountain community, residents are forced to gather for safety—resulting in a tangle of love and lust that pulls people from their isolation, friendships that form across political divides, and a new hope for rethinking the ways humans inhabit the burning planet. Playing with Wildfire is a literary landscape that is an experiment in form: an astrology report; a grant application-turned-love-story; a phone call from Mother Earth; an obituary for a wildfire; a burned mountain’s conversation with a lone woman and an injured bear. Every story captures how fire affects the human psyche and life, and how destruction can lead to renewal.
Publisher: Torrey House Press
ISBN: 1948814900
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 188
Book Description
"An immersive story of a changing landscape, innovatively told." —KIRKUS When a wildfire bears down on a mountain community, residents are forced to gather for safety—resulting in a tangle of love and lust that pulls people from their isolation, friendships that form across political divides, and a new hope for rethinking the ways humans inhabit the burning planet. Playing with Wildfire is a literary landscape that is an experiment in form: an astrology report; a grant application-turned-love-story; a phone call from Mother Earth; an obituary for a wildfire; a burned mountain’s conversation with a lone woman and an injured bear. Every story captures how fire affects the human psyche and life, and how destruction can lead to renewal.
Nothing Daunted
Author: Dorothy Wickenden
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439176604
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 306
Book Description
From the author of The Agitators, the acclaimed and captivating true story of two restless society girls who left their affluent lives to “rough it” as teachers in the wilds of Colorado in 1916. In the summer of 1916, Dorothy Woodruff and Rosamond Underwood, bored by society luncheons, charity work, and the effete men who courted them, left their families in Auburn, New York, to teach school in the wilds of northwestern Colorado. They lived with a family of homesteaders in the Elkhead Mountains and rode to school on horseback, often in blinding blizzards. Their students walked or skied, in tattered clothes and shoes tied together with string. The young cattle rancher who had lured them west, Ferry Carpenter, had promised them the adventure of a lifetime. He hadn’t let on that they would be considered dazzling prospective brides for the locals. Nearly a hundred years later, Dorothy Wickenden, the granddaughter of Dorothy Woodruff, found the teachers’ buoyant letters home, which captured the voices of the pioneer women, the children, and other unforgettable people the women got to know. In reconstructing their journey, Wickenden has created an exhilarating saga about two intrepid women and the “settling up” of the West.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439176604
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 306
Book Description
From the author of The Agitators, the acclaimed and captivating true story of two restless society girls who left their affluent lives to “rough it” as teachers in the wilds of Colorado in 1916. In the summer of 1916, Dorothy Woodruff and Rosamond Underwood, bored by society luncheons, charity work, and the effete men who courted them, left their families in Auburn, New York, to teach school in the wilds of northwestern Colorado. They lived with a family of homesteaders in the Elkhead Mountains and rode to school on horseback, often in blinding blizzards. Their students walked or skied, in tattered clothes and shoes tied together with string. The young cattle rancher who had lured them west, Ferry Carpenter, had promised them the adventure of a lifetime. He hadn’t let on that they would be considered dazzling prospective brides for the locals. Nearly a hundred years later, Dorothy Wickenden, the granddaughter of Dorothy Woodruff, found the teachers’ buoyant letters home, which captured the voices of the pioneer women, the children, and other unforgettable people the women got to know. In reconstructing their journey, Wickenden has created an exhilarating saga about two intrepid women and the “settling up” of the West.