Follows the adventures of the Berrybenders, a large, noble English family traveling the Missouri River in 1832. This deeply self-absorbed and spoiled family leaves England for the unknown of the American West, based solely on a "whim" and Lord Berrybender's desire to "shoot different animals from those he shot at home." The novel joins the family as they make their way toward Yellowstone aboard a luxury steamer, accompanied by a motley assemblage...

Ruth Young and her widowed mother, LuLing, have always had a tumultuous relationship. Now, before she succumbs to forgetfulness, LuLing gives Ruth some of her writings, which reveal a side of LuLing that Ruth has never known. . . . In a remote mountain village where ghosts and tradition rule, LuLing grows up in the care of her mute Precious Auntie as the family endures a curse laid upon a relative known as the bonesetter. When headstrong LuLing rejects...

At the heart of this third volume of his Western saga remains the beautiful and determined Tasmin Berrybender, now married to the ?Sin Killer? and mother to their young son, Monty. By Sorrow?s River continues the Berrybender party?s trail across the endless Great Plains of the West toward Santa Fe, where they intend, those who are lucky enough to survive the journey, to spend the winter. They meet up with a vast array of characters from the history...

Francesca di Paoli arrives in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in 1925, during a time of turmoil. The peace is shattered by a massive landslide and flooding, and some local residents are up in arms against new proposals for land use and progressive ideas about racial and ethnic equality. Francesca finds work as a cook at the Sutton family's dude ranch, where the two sons, William and Bryce, vie for her love. But the earth has not finished trembling, nor

...

"O Pioneers! (1913) is the story of Alexandra Bergson, a fiercely independent and clear-headed young woman whose passionate faith in the Nebraska prairie makes her a wealthy landowner." "Willa Cather's second novel is imbued with the democratic utopianism of Walt Whitman and the serene regionalism of Sarah Orne Jewett, but it is not merely an elegy for the lost glories of America's pioneer past. In its rage for order and efficiency, O pioneers! also...

"The year is 1848, and Kristin Eikaas has traveled from Norway to Wisconsin with dreams of a new life. But when she arrives, she finds one disappointment after another. Worse, her superstitious uncle now believes that his neighbor's Oneida Indian wife has put a curse on Kristin. Everyone knows the Sundbergs put spells on people-- Everyone except Kristin. Her run-ins with Sam Sundberg only prove that he is a good man from a Christian family. but when...

The extraordinary biographical novel about a Chinese-American woman who fought for independence and dignity in the American West—“an important contribution to the history of pioneer women” (Ms. Magazine)
 
Lalu Nathoy’s father called his thirteen-year-old daughter his treasure, his “thousand pieces of gold”—yet when famine strikes northern China in 1871, he is forced to sell her. Polly,...

A successful lawyer remembers his boyhood in Nebraska and his friendship with an immigrant Bohemian girl.

In Ireland in the early 1950s, Eilis Lacey is one of many who cannot find work at home. Thus when a job is offered in America, it is clear to everyone that she must go. Leaving behind her family and country, Eilis heads for unfamiliar Brooklyn, and to a crowded boarding house where the landlady's intense scrutiny and the small jealousies of her fellow residents only deepen her isolation. Slowly, the pain of parting is buried beneath the rhythms of...

Ewa Cybulski and her sister sail to New York from their native Poland in search of a new start and the American dream. When they reach Ellis Island, doctors discover that Magda is ill, and the two women are separated. Ewa is released onto the mean streets of Manhattan while her sister is quarantined. Alone, with nowhere to turn and desperate to reunite with Magda, Ewa quickly falls prey to Bruno, a charming but wicked man who takes her in and forces...