WINNER: Chanticleer 2013 Laramie Awards, Best in Category

WILLA Silver Award: Women Writing the West, 2015 Willa Award for Historical Fiction
“Agnes Canon would have been a force to be reckoned with!”

“I saw a woman hanged on my way to the Pittsburgh docks.”

Agnes Canon Robinson

Agnes Canon refuses to become a spectator in life, an invisible daughter among seven sisters, meat for the marriage market. The rivers of her Pennsylvania countryside flow west, and she yearns to flow with them, see new lands, know the independence that is the province of men. This is a story of a woman’s quest for freedom, both social and intellectual, and her evolving understanding of what freedom means. She learns that freedom can be the scent and sound of unsettled prairies, the glimpse of a cougar, the call of a hawk. The struggle for freedom can test the chains of power, poverty, gender, or the legalized horror of slavery. And, to her surprise, she discovers it can be found within a marriage, a relationship between a man and a woman who are equals in everything that matters.

Dr. Jabez Robinson

It’s also the story of Jabez Robinson, a man who’s traveled across the continent and seen the beauty of the country and the ghastliness of war, as he watches his nation barrel toward disaster. Faced with deep-seated social institutions and hard-headed intransigence, he finds himself helpless to intervene. Jabez’s story is an indictment of war in any century or country, and an admission that common sense and reasoned negotiation continue to fail us.

As Agnes and Jabez struggle to keep their community and their lives from crumbling about them, they must face the stark reality that whether it’s the freedom of an African from servitude, of the South from the North, or of a woman from the demands of social convention, the cost is measured in blood and chaos.

“One of the most favorable signs of the times, was that the ladies had been persuaded to give up corsets.” ~ Margaret Fuller Woman in the 19th Century, 1845

Published by Blank Slate Press, 2014 | ISBN: 9780985808662

The characters are likeable, intelligent, humorous, spunky and passionate people whose zest for adventure is met and then some! Superb historical fiction this reviewer highly recommends.                           ~Viviane Crystal, Historical Novel Society

THIS! You must read THIS!                                ~ Ashley, Forever Ashley blog