Strasburg Chronicles

Angelica Dawson's fiery temper often flared as red as her hair. But finding out from her Uncle Thomas that she was totally without options for her home and future, took the wind completely out of her sails. He was bringing a prospective husband to meet her the following day. All she knew about him was that he was wealthy, and that her uncle thought he would be kind to her.

Merrie adored Francis Adams when she was a child. But when she was 13, he scolded her and smacked her bottom and she decided then that she never wanted to see him again. Now, six years later, she is shocked to find that he wishes to see her again, and even more shocked when he asks to marry her. Merrie has been hoping for a marriage in which someone loves her desperately. She knows that she feels that way; but does Francis? The words 'I love you' seem as if they are destined never to reach her ears.

Feisty little schoolteacher, Cinderella Barton, is quite tired of Deputy Henson Andrews telling her what to do. She came to Strasburg to take her first teaching position, and he begins lecturing her the first week, despite her efforts to ignore him. She moves from one boarding home to another, and at the end of the school year, she is forced to move into "Lady Angelica's Home Away from Home for Ladies" in the middle of the night for safety. Once there, she finally feels safe for the first time in months.

Gracie Kennedy first came across “Billy the Bully” Becker in the woods, when she was seven. He had frightened her terribly that day but ended up taking her home. As a little girl, lost in the woods, that was what made her believe in him. Now called “William,” Billy is a deputy in the sheriff’s department who is given some of the most challenging cases to solve. Yes, he has grown up; but he’s not at all sure that Gracie has. She has come back full of disrespect and quite unladylike language, something he is not at all inclined to put up with.

It is February of 1865; the Civil War has been going on for five years now. Flaxen-haired and blue-eyed Miriam Hanner Clarke is widowed at age 28 after her husband, Burton, went to serve in the war and was killed in battle. She fills her days of dealing with his loss by working in the dormitory, which has been turned into a hospital. No longer the quiet, shy, stuttering girl she was when she arrived, Miri is now a competent young woman who is determined to ease suffering in any way she can.