Showing results by author "Lauraine Snelling" in All Categories

Award-winning author Lauraine Snelling delivers her first installment of the Dakotah Treasures series. Ruby, a Crossings Book Club Main Selection, is the story of a young woman who must leave behind the life she has grown accustomed to in order to start a new life in the bleak Dakota Territory.

When Signe, her husband, Rune, and their three boys arrive in Minnesota from Norway to help a relative clear his land of lumber, they dream of owning their own farm and building a life in the New World. But Uncle Einar and Aunt Gird are hard, demanding people, and Signe and her family soon find themselves worked nearly to the bone in order to repay the cost of their voyage. At this rate they will never have land or a life of their own.

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.

Recognizing how common it is for crafters to start many projects and finish few, a group of women join together to form a guild - Unfinished Projects Anonymous - to keep each other on track and accountable. Three friends are tasked with the job of home visits for their guild. Over the course of the story, this ensemble of women discover that much of life is half-finished - relationships, the raising of children, even our very relationship with the Lord - and that may be perfectly fine.

The sprawling lake home Lynn Lundberg built with her husband has been an epicenter of joyful family life, from summer holidays spent around the water, to cookies baked in the kitchen with grandchildren in the fall. But since her husband's sudden passing two years ago, Lynn has been lost in the grief and solitude she feels without him at home. She doesn't want to sell the big family place, but she can't exist there on her own much longer.

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.

When Chicago native Ragni Claussen grudgingly agrees to take her sullen niece with her to spruce up the family's old North Dakota cabin, she uncovers long-hidden secrets about how her greatgrandmother - in 1903 - learned to live and paint and love in this very place.

After a local mountain becomes a deadly and imminent threat, three strikingly different women become linked in a desperate mission. Children's author Katherine Sommers is searching for her depressed husband, David, and their son Brian, camping together on Mt. St. Helens' tumultuous north slope. Mellie Sedor seeks her husband, Daniel, who has taken a logging job to pay for their daughter's chemotherapy. Fashion photographer Jen Stockton joins Cowlitz County Sheriff Frank McKenzie, himself the victim of a brutal loss, in his quest to evacuate the awakening volcano.

When her reckless driving brought unimaginable tragedy, Maggie Roberts found herself in prison grieving for the loss of her son. During the course of her 10-year sentence, she found a renewed purpose working with retired Thoroughbred racehorses. But now she's faced with the transition back into society, starting over yet again and alone in the world - until she meets Gil Winters.

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.

Having experienced her share of sorrow, Rebecca has grown afraid of opening her heart to love. Can she overcome her fears or will she settle for something less than love?

Keira Johnson, a 50-year-old mother of two grown sons, believes she lives a good Christian life without secrets - until she discovers a life-jarring fact her late mother kept hidden all her life. Kiera was born out of wedlock, and the man she had always known as her father had adopted her as an infant. Meanwhile, Keira's beloved 17-year-old niece, Kirsten, has just discovered an unwanted pregnancy. Her boyfriend, Jose, is bound for college and Kirsten does not know what to do.

Award-winning author Lauraine Snelling continues the story of Ruby Torvald in book two of her Dakotah Treasures series. Ruby's most recent boarder at the Dove House is schoolteacher Pearl Hossfuss. Avoiding an arranged marriage, Pearl has deserted her home in Chicago to teach in Little Missouri. There she has befriended Ruby and fallen for carpenter Carl Hegland. But her father threatens to take her back home. Ruby must turn to God for the strength to stand up to her father.

Beloved, best-selling author Lauraine Snelling weaves a story of holiday romance, which begins with a simple advertisement for a horse's companion. Turner McNeally's daughter has gone off to college, and her horse is demonstrating signs of loneliness. Rebecca Wilkinson's son hasn't spoken a word since his father's death, and the family counselor suggests a pet. What will Christmas bring these troubled hearts? And what is this gift from God that Turner McNeally keeps talking about?

Broken by life's disappointments, four women forge a friendship that leads in unexpected directions.

As the last will of a close friend is read, three women discover that they have inherited a legacy from her: the funds to take a dream trip to Florence, Italy, in her memory. With plenty of hilarious travel mishaps along the way, this book is a story of deep friendship, of making room in our lives to celebrate and remember, of grief, of the realization that friendship keeps the memory alive, and the sweet discovery of unexpected romance.

Mona and Ken Sorenson are approaching the best years of their lives. Mona's greatest concern is that Ken will learn of the surprise party she's planning for his retirement from his job as dean of students at Stone University. They've already been making plans to travel and spend limitless hours in the garden, and Ken is looking forward to working on his woodworking and fishing with his grandchildren. It's what they deserve after years of careful planning. But things begin to unravel....

"But Mother is always dying" is Gillian Ormsby's sarcastic response when her younger, favored sister tells her that she has to go take care of their hypochondriac mother. Much against her will, since she and her mother never have gotten along, Gillian arrives in California to find the garden and yard dead, the blinds all drawn, and her mother indeed in bed - waiting to die. But when Gillian talks with the doctor, he assures her there's no medical reason behind her mother's state.

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

Joshua Landsverk left Blessing two years ago, but he's never forgotten Astrid. Returning to town, he seeks to court her, and love begins to bloom. When the opportunity opens for Astrid to go to Chicago for further training, she finds it difficult to leave home and Joshua. They agree to correspond, but after receiving only one letter from him, she learns he's left town again. Believing Joshua no longer loves her, Astrid makes an impetuous, heart-wrenching decision.