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Something Worth Doing Audiobook     
Historical

Something Worth Doing  

In 1853, Abigail Scott was a 19-year-old school teacher in Oregon Territory when she married Ben Duniway. Marriage meant giving up on teaching, but Abigail always believed she was meant to be more than a good wife and mother. When financial mistakes and an injury force Ben to stop working, Abigail becomes the primary breadwinner for her growing family. What she sees as a working woman appalls her, and she devotes her life to fighting for the rights of women, including their right to vote.
Following Abigail as she bears six children, runs a millinery and a private school, helps on the farm, writes novels, gives speeches, and eventually runs a newspaper supporting women's suffrage, Something Worth Doing explores issues that will resonate strongly with modern women: the pull between career and family, finding one's place in the public sphere, and dealing with frustrations and prejudices women encounter when they compete in male-dominated spaces. Based on a true story of a pioneer for women's rights from award-winning author Jane Kirkpatrick, this audiobook will inspire you to believe that some things are worth doing - even when the cost is great.
©2020 Jane Kirkpatrick (P) 2020 Recorded Books

One More River to Cross Audiobook     
Historical

One More River to Cross  

In 1844, two years before the Donner Party, the Stevens-Murphy company left Missouri to be the first wagons into California through the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Mostly Irish Catholics, the party sought religious freedom and education in the mission-dominated land and enjoyed a safe journey - until October, when a heavy snowstorm forced difficult decisions. The first of many for young Mary Sullivan, newlywed Sarah Montgomery, the widow Ellen Murphy, and her pregnant sister-in-law Maolisa.
When the party separates in three directions, each risks losing those they love and faces the prospect of learning that adversity can destroy or redefine. Two women and four men go overland around Lake Tahoe, three men stay to guard the heaviest wagons - and the rest of the party, including eight women and 17 children, huddle in a makeshift cabin at the headwaters of the Yuba River waiting for rescue...or their deaths.
Award-winning author Jane Kirkpatrick plunges you deep into a landscape of challenge where fear and courage go hand in hand for a story of friendship, family, and hope that will remind you of what truly matters in times of trial.
©2019 Jane Kirkpatrick (P) 2019 Recorded Books

Everything She Didn't Say Audiobook     
Historical

Everything She Didn't Say  

In 1911, Carrie Strahorn wrote a memoir entitled Fifteen Thousand Miles by Stage, which shared some of the most exciting events of 25 years of traveling and shaping the American West with her husband, Robert Strahorn, a railroad promoter, investor, and writer. That is all fact. Everything She Didn't Say imagines Carrie nearly 10 years later as she decides to write down what was really on her mind during those adventurous nomadic years.
Certain that her husband will not read it, and in fact that it will only be found after her death, Carrie is finally willing to explore the lessons she learned along the way, including the danger a woman faces of losing herself within a relationship with a strong-willed man and the courage it takes to accept her own God-given worth apart from him. Carrie discovers that wealth doesn't insulate a soul from pain and disappointment, family is essential, pioneering is a challenge, and western landscapes are both demanding and nourishing. Most of all, she discovers that home can be found, even in a rootless life.
With a deft hand, New York Times bestselling author Jane Kirkpatrick draws out the emotions of living - the laughter and pain, the love and loss - to give listeners a window not only into the past, but into their own conflicted hearts. Based on a true story.
©2018 Jane Kirkpatrick (P) 2018 Recorded Books, Inc.

All She Left Behind Audiobook     
Historical

All She Left Behind  

Already well-versed in the natural healing properties of herbs and oils, Jennie Pickett longs to become a doctor. But the Oregon frontier of the 1870s doesn't approve of such innovations as women attending medical school. To leave grief and guilt behind, as well as support herself and her challenging young son, Jennie cares for an elderly woman using skills she's developed on her own. When her patient dies, Jennie discovers that her heart has become entangled with the woman's widowed husband, a man many years her senior. Their unlikely romance may lead her to her ultimate goal - but the road will be winding and the way forward will not always be clear. Will Jennie find shelter in life's storms? Will she discover where healing truly lives?
Through her award-winning, layered storytelling, New York Times best-selling author Jane Kirkpatrick invites listeners to leave behind their preconceived notions about love and life as they, along with Jennie, discover that dreams may be deferred - but they never really die. Based on a true story.
©2017 Jane Kirkpatrick (P) 2017 Recorded Books

This Road We Traveled Audiobook     
Historical

This Road We Traveled  

Three generations of the Brown women travel west together on the Oregon Trail, but each seeks something different. When the trail divides, a decision must be made that could bring survival or tragedy. The challenges faced will form the character of one woman - and impact the future for many more.
Drama, adventure, and family struggles abound as three generations head west on the Oregon Trail.
When Tabitha Brown's son makes the fateful decision to leave Missouri and strike out for Oregon, she refuses to be left behind. Despite her son's concerns, Tabitha hires her own wagon to join the party. Along with her reluctant daughter and her ever-hopeful granddaughter, the intrepid Tabitha has her misgivings. But family ties are stronger than fear.
The trials they face along the way will severely test Tabitha's faith, courage, and ability to hope. With her family's survival on the line, she must make the ultimate sacrifice, plunging deeper into the wilderness to seek aid. What she couldn't know was how this frightening journey would impact how she understood her own life - and the greater part she has to play in history.
With her signature attention to detail and epic style, New York Times best-selling author Jane Kirkpatrick invites listeners to travel the deadly and enticing Oregon Trail. Based on actual events, This Road We Traveled will inspire the pioneer in all of us.
©2015 Jane Kirkpatrick (P) 2016 Recorded Books

Memory Weaver Audiobook     
Historical

The Memory Weaver  

Eliza Spalding Warren was just a child when she was taken hostage by the Cayuse Indians during a massacre in 1847. Now the young mother of two children, Eliza faces a different kind of dislocation; her impulsive husband wants them to make a new start in another territory, which will mean leaving her beloved home and her departed mother's grave - and returning to the land of her captivity.
Eliza longs to know how her mother, an early missionary to the Nez Perce Indians, dealt with the challenges of life with a sometimes difficult husband and with her daughter's captivity. When Eliza is finally given her mother's diary, she is stunned to find that her own memories are not necessarily the whole story of what happened. Can she lay the dark past to rest and move on? Or will her childhood memories always hold her hostage?
©2015 Jane Kirkpatrick, Inc. (P) 2015 Recorded Books

A Light in the Wilderness Audiobook     
Historical

A Light in the Wilderness  

Letitia holds nothing more dear than the papers that prove she is no longer a slave. They may not cause white folks to treat her like a human being, but at least they show she is free. She trusts in those words she cannot read - as she is beginning to trust in Davey Carson, an Irish immigrant cattleman who wants her to come west with him. Nancy Hawkins is loathe to leave her settled life for the treacherous journey by wagon train, but she is so deeply in love with her husband that she knows she will follow him anywhere - even when the trek exacts a terrible cost. Betsy is a Kalapuya Indian, the last remnant of a once proud tribe in the Willamette Valley in Oregon territory. She spends her time trying to impart the wisdom and ways of her people to her grandson. But she will soon have another person to care for. As season turns to season, suspicion turns to friendship, and fear turns to courage, three spirited women will discover what it means to be truly free in a land that makes promises it cannot fulfill.
This multilayered story from best-selling author Jane Kirkpatrick will grip listeners' hearts and minds as they travel with Letitia on the dusty and dangerous Oregon Trail into the boundless American West.
©2014 Jane Kirkpatrick (P) 2014 Recorded Books

The Daughter's Walk Audiobook     
Historical

The Daughter's Walk  

A mother's tragedy, a daughter's desire and the 7000 mile journey that changed their lives.
In 1896 Norwegian American Helga Estby accepted a wager from the fashion industry to walk from Spokane, Washington, to New York City within seven months in an effort to earn $10,000. Bringing along her 19-year-old daughter Clara, the two made their way on the 3500-mile trek by following the railroad tracks and motivated by the money they needed to save the family farm.
After returning home to the Estby farm more than a year later, Clara chose to walk on alone by leaving the family and changing her name. Her decisions initiated a more than 20-year separation from the only life she had known. Historical fiction writer Jane Kirkpatrick picks up where the fact of the Estbys’ walk leaves off to explore Clara's continued journey. What motivated Clara to take such a risk in an era when many women struggled with the issues of rights and independence? And what personal revelations brought Clara to the end of her lonely road? The Daughter's Walk weaves personal history and fiction together to invite listeners to consider their own journeys and family separations, to help determine what exile and forgiveness are truly about.
“Kirkpatrick has done impeccable homework, and what she recreates and what she imagines are wonderfully seamless. Readers see the times, the motives, the relationships that produce a chain of decisions and actions, all rendered with understatement. Kirkpatrick is a master at using fiction to illuminate history’s truths. This beautiful and compelling work of historical fiction deserves the widest possible audience.” (Publishers Weekly, starred review)
©2011 Jane Kirkpatrick (P) 2011 Random House

Where Lilacs Still Bloom Audiobook     
Historical

Where Lilacs Still Bloom  

One woman, an impossible dream, and the faith it took to see it through: German immigrant and farm wife Hulda Klager possesses only an eighth-grade education - and a burning desire to create something beautiful. What begins as a hobby to create an easy-peeling apple for her pies becomes Hulda’s driving purpose: a time-consuming interest in plant hybridization that puts her at odds with family and community, as she challenges the early-twentieth-century expectations for a simple housewife.
Through the years, seasonal floods continually threaten to erase her Woodland, Washington garden and a series of family tragedies cause even Hulda to question her focus. In a time of practicality, can one person’s simple gifts of beauty make a difference?
Based on the life of Hulda Klager, Where Lilacs Still Bloom is a story of triumph over an impossible dream and the power of a generous heart.
“Beauty matters…it does. God gave us flowers for a reason. Flowers remind us to put away fear, to stop our rushing and running and worrying about this and that, and for a moment, have a piece of paradise right here on earth.”
©2012 Jane Kirkpatrick (P) 2012 Random House Audio

Barcelona Calling Audiobook     
A Novel

Barcelona Calling

From best-selling author Jane Kirkpatrick comes this relational story about a close-knit group of five women and their pursuit of life goals. You'll be encouraged and entertained!
In the tradition of Neta Jackson's Yada Yada Prayer Group series, Kirkpatrick invites you into the lives of five women friends who promise to help each other achieve their life goals. Annie Shaw's goal is far from simple: become famous. But she's in trouble after quitting her day job to write full-time. Her second novel tanked, and her new editor wants her to re-write the ending of her latest work to ensure this one is more successful. In order to pursue fame and an elusive bestseller, Annie travels to Chicago, acquires a rambunctious dog, and participates in antics better suited to a television reality show than real life. Can Annie's best friends help her achieve her goals without destroying her future? Award-winning author Jane Kirkpatrick, known for her superb historical novels, writes this bold, fresh, contemporary story she always threatened she'd one day "put down on paper to make people laugh and consider the true treasures of their hearts."
©2011 Jane Kirkpatrick (P) 2011 Zondervan

An Absence So Great Audiobook     
Portraits of the Heart, Book 2

An Absence So Great  

Did photography replace an absence in her life or expose the truth of her heart's emptiness?
While growing in confidence as a photographer, 18-year-old Jessie Ann Gaebeles personal life is at a crossroads. Hoping shes put an unfortunate romantic longing behind her as water under the bridge, she exiles herself to Milwaukee to operate photographic studios for those owners who have fallen ill with mercury poisoning.
Jessie gains footing in her dream to one day operate her own studio and soon finds herself in other Midwest towns, pursuing her profession. But even a job she loves can't keep painful memories from seeping into her heart when the shadows of a forbidden love threaten to darken the portrait of her life.
©2010 Jane Kirkpatrick (P) 2010 Random House

A Flickering Light Audiobook     
Portraits of the Heart, Book 1

A Flickering Light  

Returning to her Midwest roots, award-winning author Jane Kirkpatrick draws a page from her grandmother's photo album to capture the interplay between shadow and light, temptation and faith that marks a woman's pursuit of her dreams.
She took exquisite photographs,but her heart was the true image exposed. Fifteen-year-old Jessie Ann Gaebele loves nothing more than capturing a gorgeous Minnesota landscape when the sunlight casts its most mesmerizing shadows. So when F.J. Bauer hires her in 1907 to assist in his studio and darkroom, her dreams for a career in photography appear to find root in reality.
With the infamous hazards of the explosive powder used for lighting and the toxic darkroom chemicals, photography is considered a man's profession. Yet Jessie shows remarkable talent in both the artistry and business of running a studio. She proves less skillful, however, at managing her growing attraction to the very married Mr. Bauer.
This luminous coming-of-age tale deftly exposes the intricate shadows that play across every dream worth pursuing - and the irresistible light that beckons the dreamer on.
©2009 Jane Kirkpatrick (P) 2009 Random House

A Name of Her Own Audiobook     
Tender Ties Historical Series, Book 1

A Name of Her Own  

During the fur-trapping era of the early 1800's, Marie Dorion refuses to be left behind in St. Louis when her husband heads west. Faced with hostile landscapes, an untried expedition leader, and her volatile husband, Marie finds that the daring act she hoped would bring her family together may, in the end, tear them apart.
History records that on the journey, Marie may have briefly met Sacajawea, the famous interpreter who accompanied Lewis and Clark. She too was married to a mixed-blood man of French Canadian and Native American descent, and was raising a son in a white world. In this imaginative re-telling, the two women forge a friendship that will uphold Marie long after they part, even as she fights for her children's very survival. Her story reminds us that women are bound together in history, now and forever.
©2002 Jane Kirkpatrick (P) 2003 Books in Motion

A Sweetness to the Soul Audiobook     
Historical

A Sweetness to the Soul  

Based on historical characters and events, A Sweetness to the Soul recounts the captivating story of young, spirited Oregon pioneer Jane Herbert, who at the age of 12 faces a tragedy that begins a life-long search for forgiveness and love.
In the years that follow, young Jane finds herself involved in an unusual and touching romance with a dreamer 16 years her senior, struggles to make peace with an emotionally distant mother, and fights to build a family of her own.
Filled with heart-warming insight and glimpses of real-life pain, A Sweetness to the Soul paints a brilliant picture of love that conquers all obstacles and offers a powerful testimony to the miracle of God's healing power.
©2008 Jane Kirkpatrick (P) 2009 Random House