Showing results by author "Irene Bennett Brown" in All Categories

A hard, high plains life has turned refined southern lady Aurelia Symington into a work-toughened, capable woman determined to give her best to those she loves. Aurelia is chosen president of the town company when the residents decide they must make the community of Paragon Springs into a real town or move elsewhere.

Amity Whitford dared to stake her own claim on the endless plains of Western Kansas. She built her homestead, Dove's Nest, with her bare hands. But the ravages of the sun and drying winds took their toll.

Lucy Walsh's heart remains with the struggling town of Paragon Springs, but she feels beholden to her husband, Admire, to make the Run to the Cherokee Strip for new land. Admire married her when few men would have, and raised her half-Sioux daughter, Rachel, as his own.

Clare Hobb is weary of the strict boundaries her uncles impose at the family conclave, Hobb's Mills. She's in love with Larkin Wade, a handsome farmer her uncles disdain. During one of many trysts between Clare and Larkin, they find her beloved, brain-damaged father, Frank, vainly attempting to aid his brother, Samuel, who has been fatally injured in a wagon runaway accident.

Meg Brennon knows that her new life at her road ranch in Paragon Springs, Kansas, can't truly begin until she severs all ties with the abusive husband she'd fled years before. Although fearful, she returns to St. Louis determined to find him and obtain a divorce. But Ted Malloy refuses, hoping that Meg's return will win him his dying father's favor, and fortune.

Laila Mitchell sets out for Oregon with little money, her medical knowledge, a medicine kit, and not much more than the clothes on her back, in the hopes of finding her last living relatives and a new life. But her plans are waylaid when she rescues and ends up treating Kate Boston, an older woman on her way to serve as a housekeeper at Ruby Gold, a peach ranch, in the Snake River Canyon.

Cassiday Curran's wagon has just been hijacked by three bedraggled strangers on their way to Dodge City. On the run from an abusive husband, Cassiday agrees to share her wagon with the thieves as they search for their uncle.

Celia Landrey is guiding her last walking-tour of the season in historic Pass Creek. Myriad tasks await her attention, such as planning her wedding to handsome cowboy real estate agent, Jake Flagg. Discovery of Smoke Allenby's bones wasn't on the agenda. But there they are, turned up in the removal project of an old underground fuel tank at Jolly Hoffman's service station. A situation Celia, town leader, can hardly ignore.

Celia Landrey, walking-tour guide and innkeeper, must deal with a mysterious female newcomer to her small town; a woman bent on destroying their most famous structure, a house where Clark Gable lived as a young man. She dons an additional role as sleuth, and struggles through a maze of secrets and lies, murder and romance to save Gable House, her town, and her life.

In 1900 a steadfast and feisty young woman, Jocelyn Belle Royal, joins a mule drive to earn back her Kansas farm lost to the bank. Entanglements over the mules, outlaws, women’s suffrage, and a disagreement over the governor’s mansion test her mettle to the limit. Jocelyn can’t give up if "home" can ever again be more than a few belongings tied in a shawl - all that she owns. 

In 1901 Kansas, newlyweds Jocelyn and Pete Pladson are determined to make Nickel Hill Ranch a successful cattle operation. For that to happen they must stop cattle rustlers who constantly plague their herd, defy a crazed woman with murder in her eye, and fight fire. A decision about two homeless youngsters who've landed on their doorstep and into their hearts is the easy part.