Fill-in-the-Gaps or Stand-alone Companion Works to the Owen Family Saga. In chronological order:
Mended by Moonlight: A Shenandoah Neighbors Novella
Charlottesville, Virginia – 1865
A grief-stricken young Confederate widow, Ella Ruth Owen only wants to hide at home and wait to die. Her parents need her to make a pretty appearance in Yankee social circles so her father can recover his business interests. They pressure her to abandon black mourning clothing and make conciliatory visits with her mother to Yankee woman newly arrived in Charlottesville with their carpet-bagger husbands.
Physician and surgeon Alexander Marshall carries deep guilt that he was away at war tending wounded soldiers when his fiancée died of a fever. Lacking a future, it doesn’t matter to him that the army sends him to the hinterlands of Virginia to work at a new hospital.
Ella Ruth’s arguments with her parents bring on debilitating headaches. Momma arranges for her to be seen by a physician at the new hospital–dismissing the fact that it’s a convalescence facility for Union soldiers.
The appearance in his office of a haunted young woman banishes Alex’s lethargy. Her claim of surgical experience shocks and intrigues him. How best can he cure her headaches? Can he figure out a way to use her skills? Will Ella Ruth’s resistance to a growing attraction to the doctor ever soften? That cannot happen until she is Mended by Moonlight.
(Mended by Moonlight is best enjoyed if read after the Owen Family Saga novel, Gone for a Soldier.)
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Ned’s Choice: A Shenandoah Neighbors Story
New Mexico and Colorado Territories – 1866
Ned Heizer has just released his betrothed from her promise to marry him. He knows she’s in good hands that are not his own.
But if he carries out his intention to backtrack their trail, to ride toward Raton Pass where he last saw the Mormon wagon party, he’ll be leaving behind his brother and his friends to go in search of an unknown future.
Is he mistaken in his belief that Maggie Julander is the girl for him? If the feeling like lightning that passed between them is any indication, he’s on the right road, unless she didn’t have the same experience.
A Shenandoah Neighbors Story that puts Ned in a situation where he must make an informed choice and take risks for his hope of happiness.
*Mormon religious beliefs play a large part in this story.*
(Ned’s Choice is best enjoyed if read following the Owen Family Saga novel Trail of Storms.)
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Broken: A Shenandoah Neighbors Story
Owen Family Homesteads, Colorado Territory – 1875
Rida Owen didn’t know married life on the Colorado frontier could be so difficult. Nothing in her Catholic upbringing prepared her for long, lonely nights when her husband, Bert, goes drinking. And womanizing. And then comes home to beat her.
Her mother-in-law thinks she’s stuck up when she doesn’t participate in the homestead wash day. Rida only wants to hide her bruises and preserve her marriage.
Then a neighbor from her past stops to say hello and reveals a secret of his own.
A Shenandoah Neighbors story that illuminates a dark corner of the Owen Family universe.
(Broken is best enjoyed if read at the end of the Owen Family Saga, but at least following the Owen Family Saga novels The Man from Shenandoah and Spinster’s Folly.)
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Bloodied Leather: A Shenandoah Neighbors Story
San Francisco – 1886
Isabelle Gilbert chafes against the restrictions that Victorian life puts on a young lady.
Forced to accept a betrothal to Percival Egmont, an English ex-patriot like her father, she is disturbed by his passion for prize-fighting—and other pursuits. And what if Mama spots the bruise on her cheek?
Then shared secrets perplex Isabelle even more.
A “Shenandoah Neighbors” story that extends the Owen Family universe, Bloodied Leather opens a new era for this popular family saga.
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