Jane Kirkpatrick

Annie Shaw's goal is far from simple: become famous. But her second novel tanked, and her new editor wants her to re-write the ending of her latest work to ensure this one is more successful. In order to pursue fame and an elusive bestseller, she travels to Chicago, acquires a rambunctious dog, and participates in antics better suited to a television reality show than real life. Can Annie's best friends help her achieve her goals without destroying...

"Classically trained pianist and singer Natalie Curtis isolated herself for five years after a breakdown just before she was to debut with the New York Philharmonic. Guilt-ridden and songless, Natalie can't seem to recapture the joy music once brought her. In 1902, her brother invites her to join him in the West to search for healing. What she finds are songs she'd never before encountered--the haunting melodies, rhythms, and stories of Native Americans....

"Mollie Sheehan has spent much of her life striving to be a dutiful daughter and honor her father's wishes, even when doing so has led to one heartbreak after another. After all, what options does she truly have in 1860s Montana? But providing for her stepfamily during her father's long absences doesn't keep her from wishing for more. When romance blooms between her and Peter Ronan, Mollie finally allows herself to hope for a brighter future--until...

"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...

Letitia holds nothing more dear than the papers that prove she is no longer a slave. Nancy Hawkins is loathe to leave her settled life for the treacherous journey by wagon train, but she will follow her husband anywhere. Betsy is a Kalapuya Indian, the last remnant of a once proud tribe in the Willamette Valley in Oregon territory. As season turns to season, suspicion turns to friendship, and fear turns to courage, three spirited women will discover...

Based on the life of Marie Dorion, the first mother to cross the Rocky Mountains and remain in the Northwest, A Name of Her Own is the fictionalized adventure account of a real woman's fight to settle in a new landscape, survive in a nation at war, protect her sons and raise them well and, despite an abusive, alcoholic husband, keep her marriage together. With two rambunctious young sons to raise, Marie Dorion refuses to be left behind in St. Louis...

In Book Two of the Change and Cherish series, Emma Giesy is married and the mother of two. She's strong-willed and smart. Despite the odds, she and her husband branch off from a religious community of the 1850s to work and live independently in the remote coastal forest of the Washington Territory, surrounded by her husband's family rather than the influence of the autocratic German leader who has taken the main colony into Oregon. But, when Emma...

"In the early 1900s, housewife Hulda Klager reads a book that changes her life forever, leading her to develop over 200 new varieties of lilacs that she gives away or sells to individuals as a way of sharing beauty. Her commitment to creation--struggling against flooding rivers and the vagaries of hybrid plants--while living through family losses and challenges is a story of perseverance and generosity that culminates when, in a time of great need,...