Linda Spalding Libri

Set deep in the Appalachian wilderness between the years of 1779 and 1784, The Land Breakers is a saga like the Norse sagas or the book of Genesis, a story of first and last things, of the violence of birth and death, of inescapable sacrifice and the faltering emergence of community. Mooney and Imy Wright, twenty-one, former indentured servants, long habituated to backbreaking work but not long married, are traveling west. They arrive in a no-account settlement in North Carolina and, on impulse, part with all their savings to acquire a patch of land high in the mountains. With a little livestock and a handful of crude tools, they enter the mountain world—one of transcendent beauty and cruel necessity—and begin to make a world of their own. Mooney and Imy are the first to confront an unsettled country that is sometimes paradise and sometimes hell. They will soon be followed by others. John Ehle is a master of the American language. He has an ear for dialogue and an eye for nature and a grasp of character that have established The Land Breakers as one of the great fictional reckonings with the making of America.

In 1798, Daniel Dickinson, a young Quaker father and widower, leaves his home in Pennsylvania to establish a new life. He sets out with two horses, a wagon full of belongings, his five children, a 15-year-old orphan wife, and a few land warrants for his future homestead.

Set against the backdrop of Hawaii, a murder mystery unfolds involving newlyweds Mayann and William, with William testifying against Mayann during her trial. Linda Spalding, a juror, harbors doubts about the evidence but is dismissed before the verdict. Eighteen years later, she seeks the truth about Mayann's guilt and discovers deeper connections between their lives. This narrative explores themes of fate, justice, and the complexities of the human heart, revealing the profound impact of choices made in moments of crisis.

Spring 1855 and Virginian farmer John Dickinson has a dangerous secret that will lead to a tragic decision. The family's riches have been wasted by his reckless brother who holds all of them hostage and, adding fuel to John's desperation, the enslaved workers have been visited by a Canadian abolitionist who pushes them to escape. One does, and his pursuit of freedom involves a dangerous quest to find his mother and child North of the border. Meanwhile, the Dickinson family become fugitives of another kind, escaping their losses in a wagon en route to a new life in the West. Confronted by hunger, fear and a near fatal river boat accident, each member of the family is tested to their limits