Böcker av Jana Harris

This series of interconnected dramatic monologues illustrates the true stories of frontier women and children who were stranded on and settled along the trails to the West. Spanning the school year 1889-90, we follow the intimate day-to-day lives of a school teacher, her students, and their parents in the mythical town of Cottonwood.

The year is 1893, and Pearl Ryan, a young woman with a checkered past, arrives in Ruby City, a silver mining town full of scoundrels-one to which no respectable woman would ever travel. Pearl sets up shop as the town laundress, but is clearly no ordinary charwoman: She is courted by many and the local doctor often solicits her assistance as his nurse. Pearl's dream is to attend medical school-not a small feat for a woman alone in the Wild West-and hopes that the proceeds from her newly inherited mining claim will pay for her education. Meanwhile, laundry is her bread and butter. As laundress, however, Pearl is privy to many secrets she'd rather not know. As a student of the healing arts, she recognizes the symptoms of poisoning when she sees them. And as a woman with a past she'd rather keep hidden, she must solve the murders plaguing Ruby City before US marshals arrive.

This saga chronicles the lives and fortunes of four generations of women in the York family, from the Russian occupation of Alaska to the building of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System. Detailing the triumphs and trials of what became a dynasty of fish and timber barons during a crucial century in Alaska's history, the novel opens with teenage Nadia Karimoff, a half-Russian, half-Native American orphan living in Sitka, being kidnapped and sold to a mysterious Yankee named Noah York.

When Washington Territory was created, the narrow, isolated Okanogan River Valley was considered a wasteland and an Indian reservation, the Chief Joseph Reserve, was established there. But when silver was discovered near what became Ruby City, the land was re-appropriated, and the Native Americans were moved to a more confined area. The Okanogan was then opened up to white homesteaders, with the hope of making the area more attractive to miners.   The interconnected dramatic monologues in Oh How Can I Keep On Singing? are the stories of the forgotten women who settled the Okanogan in the late nineteenth century, arriving by horse-drawn cart to a place that purported to have such fine weather that a barn was unnecessary for raising livestock. Not all of the newcomers survived the cattle-killing winter of 1893. Of those who did, some would not have survived if the indigenous people had not helped them.

Spanning the years 1853–1933—beginning with conveyance by oxcart and ending with air travel—this series of dramatic monologues tells the story of Helen Walsh and Thomas Hodgson, whose families trekked the trails of the great migration to the West. Helen and Thomas get married, and together, tame the remote corners of the wilderness by means of their imperishable love and a clear, well-beaten path.