Showing results by author "Lauraine Snelling" in All Categories

Lilac Nielsen's dream has come true: handsome young Reverend Ethan Pritchard has finally noticed her. Yet she must balance this new courtship with the pursuit of another dream—the publication of her artwork in a New York paper. She has secretly been submitting a series of drawings under a pen name, and if anyone traces the drawings back to her, the entire Nielsen family could be put in danger.

In Minnesota in 1911, Nilda Carlson is torn between society life in the city of Blackduck and spending time with her family back home on the farm. Still new to America herself, Nilda focuses on the area's immigrant community, but she'll have to fight to get her ideas accepted by the locals and donors alike. In the meantime, one of her greatest joys is her weekly piano lesson with the handsome schoolteacher, Fritz. But just as Nilda is beginning to realize she has feelings for him, a stylish, affluent young woman moves to Blackduck and monopolizes Fritz's attention.

After three long years of scrimping and saving to buy tickets for their passage to America, Roald and Ingeborg Bjorklund, along with their son, Thorliff, finally arrive at the docks of New York City. It was the promise of free land that fed their dream and lured them from their beloved home high above the fjords of Norway in 1880. As they join the throngs of countless immigrants passing through Castle Garden, the Bjorklunds soon discover that nothing is as they had envisioned it.

Dinah Taylor has an orderly life that is just how she likes it. A perfectly furnished luxury apartment, a satisfying career as a scientist and CEO of her own company, and an uncomplicated personal life. But all of that changes when she meets seven-year-old Jonah. The boy shows up one day, a scruffy dog by his side, in front of her office building. Dinah knows nothing about kids and even less about animals, but after she buys him breakfast, he shows up the next day...and the next. She tries to learn more about him, to help him, but he's remarkably skilled at evading her questions.

Just a few short weeks into her yearlong nurse training assignment at the Blessing Hospital, Miriam Antonio is called home to Chicago, where her mother is gravely ill. With siblings to care for, Miriam pleads to be allowed to finish her training in Chicago. Her nursing supervisor grants her a brief reprieve but extracts a promise that Miriam will soon return to Blessing and fulfill her commitment. While in Chicago Miriam has tried to get Trygve Knutson and Blessing out of her mind, but his letters make that impossible.

Though she has known hardships in her life, Ingeborg Bjorklund chooses to focus on all she has been given. Blessed with children and grandchildren, she enjoys the friendship and support of the entire Blessing, North Dakota, community. And after several years of widowhood, she has reached a place of contentment with her life.

The Minnesota frontier is nothing like Nilda Carlson imagined. After a terrifying experience in a lumber camp, she finds a safe job helping a young widow. When she meets Fritz, she is initially uninterested in his overtures. But as he begins to win her over, would loving him mean abandoning her goals - or simply exchanging one dream for a different one?

Assuming the Lord wants her to practice medicine in a remote African outpost, Astrid Bjorklund enrolls in a missionary training school. She prays her former sweetheart will one day understand. But when a family crisis calls her home, Astrid hears of a deadly measles outbreak on a nearby Indian reservation. Feeling inexplicably constrained to help, she wonders if God might be leading her to a “mission field” that’s much closer than she imagined.

In this series finale by Lauraine Snelling, Astrid Bjorklund is trying to stop the epidemic ravaging South Dakota’s Red Bud Indian Reservation. Tribal elders remain suspicious of her until some begin to recover. Although Joshua Landsverk longs to fix his broken relationship with Astrid, he opposes her present work but won’t tell her why. Yet when a surprising act of kindness brings healing to the painful wrong inflicted years ago, will it be enough to rekindle their love?

Anji Baard Moen, a recent widow, returns from Norway with her children. She quickly settles back into life in Blessing, teaching Norwegian history in the high school and writing articles for the Blessing Gazette. When tragedy strikes, Anji steps in to run the newspaper and soon finds a kindred spirit in the widower who owns the printing press. As they spend time together, Anji wonders if there's something more than friendship growing between them.

Ever so slowly, Dakota Territory is being transformed from a vast prairie into rich farmland. With the coming of the railroad, the small town of Blessing begins to prosper, and the Bjorklund family is reaping the promised harvest that had lured them from their beloved home in Norway. But for Ingeborg and Haakan, realizing their dreams will not come without a struggle.

Deborah MacCallister, head nurse at the Blessing hospital, has loved Toby Valders since her school days, but she's had enough of their on-again, off-again relationship. Toby truly cares for Deborah, but he's never felt like he could commit to marriage or a family. When Anton Genddarm, the new schoolteacher, comes to town, the young women of Blessing see a chance to force Toby's hand with a little strategic matchmaking.

National best-selling author Lauraine Snelling brings a small mountain town to thrilling life when a natural disaster threatens to destroy lives. US Border Patrol agent Ben James' life is in tatters. A tragic accident stole the love of his life and he never finished grieving. Turning to the bottle for support, he lost sight of what was important. While making his last patrol run before a storm rolls in, Ben's canine partner Bo finds an abandoned baby hidden in the woods. As Ben rushes the child to the only clinic in the area, the storm strikes with unexpected fury.

The dream of their own farmstead and a good life in America had brought Roald and Ingeborg Bjorklund across the Atlantic to pioneer the virgin prairie of Dakota Territory. But Roald's tragic disappearance in a winter storm turned Ingeborg's dreams into a living nightmare. Against nearly impossible circumstances and overwhelming grief, she struggles to keep the farm and her family together.

As Opal begins, it's 1886 in the wild and untamed Dakota Territory. To avoid a drifter's murderous clutches, tomboy Opal Torvald is forced to leave the ranch she loves. But when she returns - older and more lady-like - she meets Jacob, a new ranch hand from back east. Now Opal must choose between an old friendship and a new romance.

Best-selling author Lauraine Snelling crafts tales of forgiveness and love that listeners adore. This volume combines the first three novels in Snelling's inspiring Dakota series, which follows the intertwining lives of five women living in the early 1900s farming community of Soldahl, North Dakota. All arrive expecting a life different than the one that awaits them, but plenty of perseverance - and opening their hearts to God - will shine a guiding light toward true happiness.

Seeking to fulfill the promise she made to her dying father, 18-year-old Jesselynn Highwood determines to take her little brother and the family's remaining thoroughbreds from the Twin Oaks plantation in Kentucky to her uncle's farm in Missouri, where they will be safe for the remainder of the Civil War.

Eighteen-year-old Grace Knutson loves Blessing, North Dakota, and sees no reason to leave. She's more serious-minded than her twin sister, Sophie, and very sensitive to the feelings of others. In spite of her family's disapproval, Grace has always had a soft spot in her heart for Toby Valders, for she's seen the vulnerable side he keeps well hidden. Jonathan Gould, the handsome scion of a wealthy New York family, creates a flurry of anticipation and speculation when he arrives in Blessing.

Defiant Sophie leaves home with her beau, but when tragedy strikes and a heartbroken Sophie wishes to return, she may not be welcome.

Ellie Wold can't wait to graduate from high school. She and Andrew Bjorklund have been waiting to get married since...well, since forever, and in June they will finally wed. When Andrew announces they have to postpone the wedding, she's disappointed but takes it in stride--there must be a good reason, or Andrew's pa wouldn't ask it of them.