In 1844, two years before the Donner Party, the Stevens-Murphy company left Missouri to be the first wagons into California through the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Mostly Irish Catholics, the party sought religious freedom and education in the mission-dominated land and enjoyed a safe journey - until October, when a heavy snowstorm forced difficult decisions. The first of many for young Mary Sullivan, newlywed Sarah Montgomery, the widow Ellen Murphy, and her pregnant sister-in-law Maolisa. 

In 1853, Abigail Scott was a 19-year-old school teacher in Oregon Territory when she married Ben Duniway. Marriage meant giving up on teaching, but Abigail always believed she was meant to be more than a good wife and mother. When financial mistakes and an injury force Ben to stop working, Abigail becomes the primary breadwinner for her growing family. What she sees as a working woman appalls her, and she devotes her life to fighting for the rights of women, including their right to vote.

After 25 years of traveling and shaping the American West with her husband, Robert Strahorn, a railroad promoter, investor, and writer, Carrie Strahorn decides to write down what was really on her mind during those adventurous nomadic years. Certain that her husband will not read it, and in fact that it will only be found after her death, Carrie is finally willing to explore the lessons she learned along the way, including the danger a woman faces of losing herself within a relationship with a strong-willed man and the courage it takes to accept her own God-given worth apart from him.

Eliza Spalding Warren was just a child when she was taken hostage by the Cayuse Indians during a massacre in 1847. Now the young mother of two children, Eliza faces a different kind of dislocation; her impulsive husband wants them to make a new start in another territory, which will mean leaving her beloved home and her departed mother's grave - and returning to the land of her captivity.

German immigrant and farm wife Hulda Klager possesses only an eighth-grade education - and a burning desire to create something beautiful. What begins as a hobby to create an easy-peeling apple for her pies becomes Hulda’s driving purpose: a time-consuming interest in plant hybridization that puts her at odds with family and community, as she challenges the early-twentieth-century expectations for a simple housewife.

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 entangled with the woman's widowed husband, a man many years her senior.

Returning to her Midwest roots, award-winning author Jane Kirkpatrick draws a page from her grandmother's photo album to capture the interplay between shadow and light, temptation and faith that marks a woman's pursuit of her dreams.

Determined to prove her worth, Meksem fiercely fought to earn her place among the warriors in her Nez Perce camp. When her half-sister is captured by an enemy tribe, she refuses to trust the rescue to anyone else. But her new friends insist on joining her mission, and she battles between relief and frustration at their presence. Especially the white man who peers at her as if he can see through the face of the warrior she struggles so hard to maintain.

Faith Allen went to live with her aunt and uncle in the Kentucky mountains after her parents died. They hadn’t been cruel, but they hadn’t been loving and kind, either; and they expected her to work hard. When their son strikes it rich in the California gold rush, they pack up to head to California via the Oregon Trail.

For Havyn Powell, growing up on her grandfather Chuck Bondrant's dairy outside the 1904 gold-rush boomtown of Nome, Alaska, offered all she needed. She had the love of her mother, two sisters, and grandfather. But now, at 23, Havyn realizes the stability of her life may soon vanish. Havyn is determined to find a way to keep the family together, but her grandfather's health is declining and everyone seems to be holding secrets from each other, including the handsome, dark-haired stranger who recently arrived. 

Pennsylvania 1739 : Stanton Klein’s father had given up on life after his wife died and left Stanton orphaned to live with his grandparents. He decided he would never love like that. He and his first wife had fared well together, but she’d died in childbirth. Now he’s decided to find another woman to marry. After all, a farmer needs a wife and sons. However, with the changes come important lessons and dangers that Stanton never imagined. 

Unflinching and plainspoken, Tessa Swan is not your typical 18th-century woman. Born and bred on the Western Virginia frontier along with her five brothers, she is a force to be reckoned with. Quiet and courageous, Clay Tygart is not your typical 18th-century man. Raised by Lenape Indians, he returns a hero from the French and Indian War to the fort that bears his name, bringing with him Tessa's long-lost friend, Keturah, a redeemed Indian captive like himself. Determined to avoid any romantic entanglements as fort commander, Clay remains aloof whenever he encounters the lovely Tessa.

Ingrid Chastain readily agreed to accompany her father to deliver vaccines to a mining town in the Montana Territory. She never could have anticipated a terrible accident would leave her alone and badly injured in the wilderness. When rescue comes in the form of a mysterious mountain man who tends her injuries, she's hesitant to put her trust in this quiet man who seems to have his own wounds. 

After losing her husband in the Rocky Mountain wilderness, young widow Joanna Watson is struggling to make a new home for her five-year-old son, Samuel, in the little mountain town of Settler's Fort. When she returns home from work to find Samuel and the woman watching him missing - and the sheriff dead - she enlists a man she prays has enough experience in this rugged country to help.

The Overland Trail, 1853: Naomi May never expected to be widowed at 20. Eager to leave her grief behind, she sets off with her family for a life out West. On the trail, she forms an instant connection with John Lowry, a half-Pawnee man straddling two worlds and a stranger in both. But life in a wagon train is fraught with hardship, fear, and death. Even as John and Naomi are drawn to each other, the trials of the journey and their disparate pasts work to keep them apart.