Ruby Sisson Library

Nineteen-year-old Rebecca Baard has experienced more than her share of sorrow. And though she dreams of finding love, she's afraid to open her heart. Besides, no man has ever shown enough interest in her to come courting. Rebecca's friends set out to remedy the situation, concocting social events to attract all the eligible bachelors in town and advising her in the use of feminine wiles. Rebecca also hopes to open a soda shop in Blessing, so she travels...

She never intended to stay. So why is leaving so hard? The fertile prairies of Dakota Territory have finally begun to yield the bountiful harvests the pioneers have dreamed about since leaving their homes in Norway. The tiny community of Blessing is beginning to expand and thrive, its hardy citizens at last enjoying a measure of prosperity. Mary Martha MacCallister comes to Blessing from Missouri to visit her brother. She volunteers to help at the...

Certain she can't live without Hamre Bjorklund, the impetuous Sophie Knutson rejects her father's request to postpone her marriage until after graduation and convinces Hamre to elope. But far from her family, Sophie finds that life as a fisherman's bride in Ballard, Washington, is not all she had envisioned. Pregnant and lonely Hamre is away at sea, she hires on at a fish cannery, only to be fired after fainting on the job. When tragedy strikes, heartbroken...

Ever so slowly Dakota Territory is being transformed from a vast prairie into rich farmland. With the coming of the railroad, the small town of Blessing begins to prosper, and the Bjorklund family is reaping the promised harvest that had lured them from their beloved home in Norway. But for Ingeborg and Haakan, realizing their dreams will not come without a struggle. After their own fields are harvested, Haakan and the neighboring men take the steam...

"After three long years of scrimping and saving to buy tickets for their passage to America, Roald and Ingeborg Bjorklund, along with their son, Thorliff, finally arrive at the docks of New York City. It was the promise of free land that fed their dream and lured them from their beloved home high above the fjords of Norway in 1880."-Cover.

What they find on America's vast plains is not what they expected -- but it's more than they ever dared to dream.

"It has required long, difficult years to tame the virgin prairie of Dakota Territory, but in spite of heartache and back-breaking labor, the hardy immigrants recognize that God has been with them every step. What was merely a dream is now beginning to take shape. And so they face the challenge of proving up their homesteads and building an official town for their growing community. Hjelmer travels west to work on the railroad, but after sending only...

Three sisters face uncertainty about their futures as they struggle to correct the mistakes they made in the past.

Sixteen-year-old Sissel Hemstad and her siblings have been living peacefully in small-town Montana, but while two men, one a mine owner and one a Pinkerton spy, are courting her, using her gift as a Ransacker could doom them all.