Ruby & Roland - A Novel

Faith Sullivan

Summary

“Rapturous . . . The joyful sense of community within this love story offers a charming and refreshing escape from the modern world.” —Kirkus Reviews

Growing up in early twentieth-century Illinois, Ruby Drake is a happy child. But one winter’s night, her beloved parents perish in an accident—and suddenly Ruby finds herself destitute and nearly alone in the world. Her new path eventually takes her to Harvester, Minnesota, where she’s lucky enough to find work on the welcoming Schoonover farm. Kind Emma, forward-thinking Henry, and their hired men—ambitious Dennis and reserved Jake—soon become a second family to the orphaned teenager.

Young women are expected to be focused on courtship and marriage, but the industrious, bright Ruby searches for opportunities to expand her horizons at every step. Mastering her responsibilities on the farm. Learning to smoke cigarettes. Borrowing books from the local lending library, reading devotedly and expansively: mythology, romance, poetry. And falling in love with her married neighbor, Roland. But when Ruby is asked to care for Roland’s wife in the wake of tragedy, she is torn between duty and passion, between what has been her lot and what could be, in this story of friendship, romance, and the families we are born with and create—and of one woman’s journey of selfhood on the prairie.

“Her novels are a reliably inviting world, full of friendly faces and intimate dramas. However you first make your way to Harvester, you’ll want to return.” —The Wall Street Journal

Available since: 09/10/2019.

Print length: 232 pages.

Other books that might interest you

Knight Errant

R. Garcia y Robertson

R. Garcia y Robertson is the author of a numerous of books and stories, many of them published in the SF genre. In addition, he has written two highly praised novels outside that genre, American Woman, and The Spiral Dance ("A remarkably realistic historical fantasy."--Ellen Kushner, host of Song and Spirit, NPR). Now Garcia y Robertson returns with a powerful time-travel romance that reaches new imaginative heights.Robyn Stafford, a young American woman executive, has flown from Hollywood to England to surprise her lover on his birthday, only to find that he's married and his wife's giving the party. So she takes a few days off to recover from her outrage and dismay, traveling and hiking in England near the Welsh border. There she encounters a young man on horseback, wearing a sword, chain mail, and a surcoat, who identifies himself as Edward Plantagenet, Earl of March, and asks directions to a nearby abbey. He thinks it is the year 1459, is amazed by her working cell phone, and invites her to ride along, although at first he thought her a young boy wearing pants! Then his pursuers show up, and Edward and Robyn ride madly across the hills until he drops her off and gallops back to face his enemies. After he fights them off, he returns and invites her to come with him and be his lady. Then he rides away, into the distant past, to the age of the War of the Roses.And so Robyn Stafford must find a way to leave the world of today for the fifteenth century, where she will fall in love with a young knight, a prince who will be king. This is the first of three books in a sweeping historical romance. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Show book

Saved and Single

Sheila Copeland

In this sizzling tale of secrets, faith, and love by best-selling author Sheila Copeland, two L.A. sisters discover the importance of being single and saved, but not scandalous. While waiting for God to bring the ideal husband into her life, Tiffany has done everything a good Christian woman should. And just when Mr. Right begins to show an interest in her, her wayward sister Shay posts Tiffany's picture and profile on a dating website without telling her. Posing as her sister, Shay immediately meets the man of her dreams. And that's when things get crazy.

Show book

No Resting Place - A Novel

William Humphrey

A Scottish-Cherokee boy accompanies his grandparents on the Trail of Tears in this “superb” novel by the New York Times–bestselling author of The Ordways (Time).   Twelve-year-old Amos Ferguson is a blond, blue-eyed boy of mixed Cherokee and Scottish heritage, the son of a physician and the grandson of a gentleman farmer. Despite wealth and education, however, the family has no recourse when a drifter forges a bill of sale to their plantation: Georgia state law forbids anyone with Native American blood from testifying in court.   Amos and his grandparents are relocated to a squalid internment camp and forced to join their tribe on a long and brutal march to the Indian Territory west of the Mississippi. Along the way, the doctor’s son tends to the sick as thousands perish from disease, starvation, and exhaustion. In the Republic of Texas, he bears witness to the doomed last stand of Chief Bowles and his band of Cherokee, who refuse to sacrifice the lands promised them by Sam Houston.   More than a century later, Amos’s great-great-grandson narrates the story of his ancestor’s harrowing journey and heroic survival, in “a novel every American should be required to read” that brings a shameful chapter of US history to life (Los Angeles Times). From the National Book Award–nominated author of Home from the Hill and Farther Off from Heaven, No Resting Place “is more than one boy's story; it is the story of a nation dispossessed and brought to its knees by the greed and power of another” (Library Journal).This ebook features an illustrated biography of William Humphrey including rare photos form the author’s estate.

Show book

The Matador of the Five Towns...

Arnold Bennett

The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories is a collection written by English writer Arnold Bennett (1867-1931). It was first published in 1912. These satirical stories draw on author's experience of life in the Potteries, as did most of his best work. This collection includes 22 tales of life in the five pottery manufacturing towns of Staffordshire: Mimi, The Supreme Illusion, The Letter and the Lie, The Glimpse, Jock-at-a-Venture, The Heroism of Thomas Chadwick, Under the Clock, Three Episodes in the Life of Mr Cowlishaw Dentist, Catching the Train, The Widow of the Balcony, The Cat and Cupid, The Fortune Teller, The Long Lost Uncle, The Tight Hand, Why the Clock Stopped, Hot Potatoes, Half a Sovereign, The Blue Suit, The Tiger and the Baby, The Revolver, An Unfair Advantage.

Show book

So Little Time - A Novel

John P. Marquand

A father frets over his son’s future while reexamining his own past in John P. Marquand’s enduring portrait of America on the brink of World War II A script doctor who divides his time between Manhattan, Hollywood, and a country home in New England, Jeffrey Wilson has entered middle age with all the trappings of success. Yet, in the months leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, he feels increasingly anxious and isolated. He fears that his eldest son, a college sophomore, will be called to fight before he has had a chance to live on his own terms.   Two decades ago, Jeffrey served in World War I, and his life since then seems like a series of accidents. Instead of the journalism career he aspired to, he toils to fix other people’s plays. By marrying into a prominent family, he gained wealth and stature, but sacrificed his autonomy. His friends and acquaintances, most of whom were chosen by his wife, are foolish and vain..   Powerless to rewind the clock or hold back the tides of global conflict, Jeffrey offers his son the one piece of advice that is impossible for a young man to hear: Time is running out. Witty, moving, and meticulously observed, So Little Time is the story of a crucial period in American history and one man’s attempts to make sense of it all.

Show book

A Feigned Madness

Tonya Mitchell

The insane asylum on Blackwell’s Island is a human rat trap. It is easy to get in, but once there it is impossible to get out. —Nellie Bly 
  
Elizabeth Cochrane has a secret.  
  
She isn’t the madwoman with amnesia the doctors and inmates at Blackwell’s Asylum think she is. 
  
In truth, she’s working undercover for the New York World. When the managing editor refuses to hire her because she’s a woman, Elizabeth strikes a deal: in exchange for a job, she’ll impersonate a lunatic to expose a local asylum’s abuses. 
  
When she arrives at the asylum, Elizabeth realizes she must make a decision—is she there merely to bear witness, or to intervene on behalf of the abused inmates? Can she interfere without blowing her cover? As the superintendent of the asylum grows increasingly suspicious, Elizabeth knows her scheme—and her dream of becoming a journalist in New York—is in jeopardy. 
  
A Feigned Madness is a meticulously researched, fictionalized account of the woman who would come to be known as daredevil reporter Nellie Bly. At a time of cutthroat journalism, when newspapers battled for readers at any cost, Bly emerged as one of the first to break through the gender barrier—a woman who would, through her daring exploits, forge a trail for women fighting for their place in the world.

Show book