These is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901 - Softcover

Turner, Nancy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0340717785 ISBN 13: 9780340717783

Publisher: Hodder Paperbacks, 1999

Synopsis

Sarah Agnes Prine begins her diary in 1881 when her father decides to move the whole family - and their horse ranch - from Arizona Territory to Texas, where life will be easier. Sarah, at seventeen, is a tomboy: though she longs to be educated, gracious and beautiful like other women. But when the family sets out on the wagon trail and disasters strike in rapid succession, Sarah turns out to be the only thing that keeps them from certain death.

Sarah stays brave, strong and determined through everything that befalls her. But she longs to be loved, like any other woman, and she is to meet her destiny in Captain Jack Elliot.

About this title

About the Author

Nancy E. Turner is the author of several works of fiction, including The Water and the Blood and Sarah's Quilt. She has been a seam snipper in a clothing factory, a church piano player, a paleontologist's aide, and an executive secretary. She lives in Tucson, Arizona, with her husband and two children.

From Kirkus Reviews

A convivial period tale of adventure, love, and marriage, featuring a spunky gun-toting heroine and the brave-hearted soldier she comes to love. ``These is'' the late-19th-century words of Sarah Prine (whose grammar will improve considerably by the close of the yarn) as she tells the story of her family's trek from their Oregon home to Arizona--a journey that takes a terrible toll, including the death of Papa from a wound in a Comanche attack, a brother's loss of a leg, and the killing of friends who are traveling in the same wagon train. There'll also come the death of a small brother from snakebite, Mama's temporary weakness of mind, and Sarah's own first killing when she rescues young friends from rape. Leading the trek is aloof and hateful Captain Jack Elliot of the Regular Army, with whom Sarah struck a bargain--trading surplus horses for books. Sarah then marries horseman Jimmy Reed and settles down outside Tucson to raise horses. Mama and more family are nearby for the birth of daughter April, but the marriage is not meant to be. Jimmy, actually a deceiver, is accidentally killed at about the time that Sarah rescues none other than Captain Jack himself from death. The courtship of Sarah by Jack is long and quirky, conducted in between Army assignments, but a marriage does ensue, and it's a supremely happy one: Sarah gives birth to three and weathers Jack's many departures for the Army. He's heroic but needy, and an adoring lover; Sarah's heroic not only in spirit but with weaponry. Eventually, she even gets an education. After all the familial triumphs and tragedies, Jack must leave for the last time--in a super weeper of a death scene. A lushly satisfying romance, period-authentic, with true-grit pioneering. (First serial to Good Housekeeping) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Hodder Paperbacks
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0340717785
• ISBN 13: 9780340717783
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 400