From the New York Times bestselling author of The Aviator's Wife
comes a story of courage on the prairie, inspired by the devastating
storm that struck the Great Plains in 1888, threatening the lives of
hundreds of immigrant homesteaders, especially schoolchildren.
**"A nail-biter . . . poignant, powerful, perfect." --Kate Quinn, author
of *The Alice Network
The morning of January 12, 1888, was unusually mild, following a
punishing cold spell. It was warm enough for the homesteaders of the
Dakota Territory to venture out again, and for their children to return
to school without their heavy coats--leaving them unprepared when
disaster struck. At the hour when most prairie schools were letting out
for the day, a terrifying, fast-moving blizzard blew in without warning.
Schoolteachers as young as sixteen were suddenly faced with life and
death decisions: Keep the children inside, to risk freezing to death
when fuel ran out, or send them home, praying they wouldn't get lost in
the storm?
Based on actual oral histories of survivors, this gripping novel follows
the stories of Raina and Gerda Olsen, two sisters, both
schoolteachers--one becomes a hero of the storm and the other finds
herself ostracized in the aftermath. It's also the story of Anette
Pedersen, a servant girl whose miraculous survival serves as a turning
point in her life and touches the heart of Gavin Woodson, a newspaperman
seeking redemption. It was Woodson and others like him who wrote the
embellished news stories that lured northern European immigrants across
the sea to settle a pitiless land. Boosters needed them to settle
territories into states, and they didn't care what lies they told these
families to get them there--or whose land it originally was.
At its heart, this is a story of courage, of children forced to grow up
too soon, tied to the land because of their parents' choices. It is a
story of love taking root in the hard prairie ground, and of families
being torn asunder by a ferocious storm that is little remembered
today--because so many of its victims were immigrants to this country.