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B. J. Scott
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Montana, 1884: It was a time of vanishing cultures and rising empires. A time of much that could be done—much that needed to be done. And in the end, it didn't matter who did it.
Seventeen-year old schoolgirl Ryka Sundstrom dreams of doing what no girl ever has—build a railroad. Fleeing her home and an arranged marriage, pursued across four states by a vengeful father bound by tradition, Ryka unites with a childhood sweetheart in Kansas, only to suffer his later betrayal. Surrounded by people who tell her girls don't build railroads, Ryka refuses to give up. Near defeat In the face of overwhelming odds, she offers herself to a potential backer. Will her new partner in business be her partner in love as well, or will he too turn against her? The truth will be told when ambition and boldness lead Ryka to a showdown with the feared Empire Builder of the Great Northern Railway—James J. Hill.
THE RAIL QUEEN weaves through the awakening of the American railroad as it knits together the strands of empire from Atlantic to Pacific—even as every mile of new track speeds the vanishing of the American frontier, and of the brief age when anything was possible—even for a young schoolgirl with an extraordinary dream.
THE RAIL QUEEN is the fifth in the Tales of Strong Women series of historical novels by award-winning author B J Scott (Winner, 2011 WILLA Literary Award, Best Original Softcover Fiction, from Women Writing the West)
THE RAIL QUEEN
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In 1876, sixteen-year-old mail-order bride Ellen O'Hara sets off westward from Salina, Kansas to meet her husband-to-be, a cavalry officer stationed at Fort Walla Walla in Washington Territory. En route, her traveling party is attacked by Indians near Elko, Nevada. Badly wounded, Ellen can think of nothing more than heading north to her fiance. But she wanders off into the wilderness and disappears. Eventually found near death by a band of Shoshone Indians, she becomes immersed in a doomed alien culture she grows to admire. Knowing tragedy is in their future, she fights against her own race for the survival of her new friends and for her man, the Shoshone chief Bear Paw. When she is returned to white society, and on trial for murder, she must choose between the culture she was born to and the one in which she became a woman, between the man she was promised to and the man she has grown to love.
LIGHT ON A DISTANT HILL
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Irish immigrant Kathleen Connelly comes to America with her husband and daughter to find California gold, only to be widowed before she reaches the gold fields. With her daughter Megan, adopted daughter Danielle, and new husband, through sheer force of will she founds an empire built on gold, cattle, and relentless determination. To the Paiute Indians of California she is a blue-eyed devil woman who cannot be killed; to gold miners a fearless adversary who backs down from no one. But all the while she is tracked by a Paiute warrior whose thirst for vengeance can only be satisfied by the death of this blue-eyed devil woman whom he blames for destroying his world. First novel in a trilogy.
ANGEL OF THE GOLD RUSH
ANGEL TRILOGY - BOOK 1 |
San Francisco, 1867 A beautiful heiress is kidnapped and put aboard a ship bound for distant lands, a deed with mysterious ties to the building of the transcontinental railroad. . . a ferocious sea battle at Hong Kong . . . an unstoppable warrior . . . a Chinese mistress of unspeakable evil . . a thrilling locomotive chase thru the Sierras . . . a family of steel-spined women who yield to no one.
The Connellys are back! The formidable females introduced in 2004s Angel of the Rush return as an old enemy arises again, and allies himself with a new, more deadly foe. Corruption reaching to the highest levels of the building of the new state of California poses a threat to the Connelly empire. The pace never slackens as Kathleen and her daughters Megan and Danielle battle enemies at home and abroad in Book Two of the Angel Trilogy.
ANGEL'S DAUGHTER
ANGEL TRILOGY - BOOK 2 |
California, 1884: A clipper ship belonging to Connelly-Wilson Shipping is attacked by a mysterious blackvessel which displays amazing speed and deadly weaponry. The clipper ship is sunk with all hands, save one survivor. Only days later, another Connelly-Wilson ship is sunk by the same black vessel; this time there are no survivors. Weeks later, a Connelly railroad trestle is dynamited, with loss of life narrowly avoided. Then another, sending a freight train to the bottom ofa deep ravine.And shockingly, a youngwoman, heiressto the reins of the Connelly-Wilsonempire, disappears into the Sierra-Nevada Mountains in the dead ofwinter. After seventeen years in hiding, an old evil has arisen again, one who nevertheless has still not learned one fatal lesson:never cross a Connelly woman.
BookThree of the Angel Trilogy - a legend passes on, and a new one isborn, as the granddaughter of the Angel of the Gold Rush takes the stage.
LEGACY OF ANGELS
ANGEL TRILOGY - BOOK 3 |