Laramie

Louisa Caldecott, a progressive woman and independent business owner in 1880 Kansas, is principled, strong-willed, passionate, and generous to a fault. Satisfied with her comfortable life, she's happy to live in her sister Lily's shadow. Until Lou meets John Rock Davis, Civil War veteran and man with a past. Until everything she loves is put at risk. Until she is forced to take a stand that threatens her safety, her happiness, and her future. Then all hell-but heaven, too-breaks loose, and self-sufficient Lou finally understands the cost of courage and the power of love.

It's 1905, and the new century overflows with opportunities for the smart, the strong, the confident, and the determined. All words that describe Hope Birdwell to a T. Her first twenty years had their share of trouble and torment, but she's certain the next twenty hold only promise. Hope leaves her past behind and heads for Wyoming to take up homesteading. Never mind that she's alone in the world and has never known a real home in her life. Her name is Hope, and she's sure that a bright and independent future waits right around the corner. Until the long reach of perverted violence from a brute she would rather forget gets in the way of her dreams. And the warmly distracting appeal of friends and community tries to compromise her independence. And the loving attention of a handsome young man causes her to falter. Hope is poised at the edge of a bright future, if she can only protect herself and the people she's grown to love from the deadly menace of her past. She'll go to any lengths, risk all her dreams and plans, to make things right. Unless it's too late for that. Hope Birdwell will discover some surprising truths in the wilds of Wyoming: that there's danger in deception, freedom in sacrifice, and a cost to love.

The year is 1910. Katherine Davis, MD, is an intelligent, self-assured, and attractive woman whose confidence perfectly reflects the confidence of a new century overflowing with scientific, medical, and technological breakthroughs. Without a moment's hesitation, young Dr. Davis accepts the professional invitation of a lifetime when she travels to Chicago's Hull-House to work with the celebrated social reformer, Jane Addams. Katherine is an excellent doctor eager to make a difference in the world and the people around her, and Chicago's crowded tenements with their burgeoning immigrant population offer just that opportunity. Everything Katherine believes about right and wrong, about good and evil she learned from her parents and the secure childhood they gave her. But times have changed, and Katherine can no longer rely on the values of the past. She has outgrown that past and the home of her childhood seems outdated and old-fashioned compared to the progressive society around her. She's an independent woman, who must make her own way and follow her own ideals. When Katherine meets the dazzling Douglas Gallagher, a man as confident and as fearless as she, a successful man who has left his own past behind, an uncompromising-even ruthless-man, she is asked to choose between her past and her future. And the choice is so much more complicated than she expected! Because for Katherine, deciding where-and who-home really is will change her forever. And for good.