Play Book Tag discussion

This book was such a pleasure to read. It just plain made me happy. Mary Pearl is the niece of the amazing pioneer woman Sarah Prine, from These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901. I now know she was also related to Resolute fromMy Name Is Resolute, which is another well regarded book by Nancy E. Turner. Mary Pearl is a spitfire of a girl in 1907 in the Arizona territory. She has no formal schooling but she has received a broad education by reading the books in her aunt’s impressive library. She is accepted to Wheaton College in Illinois, to study art (and history and Greek). Her plans are almost derailed by a wedding proposal from a young lawyer, but she decides he’ll have to wait. (She doesn’t care what Jane Austen would say.). She helps her grandmother write her memoirs and a family history before she goes, and promises to keep her secrets until she is gone. The book is split between Mary Pearl’s life in college, and dangerous adventures when she returns home in the middle of a range war. College life is more my speed, but the second half of the book was quite exciting. She turns out to be just as strong as the women in her grandmother’s memoirs. I used to think I didn’t really like westerns, but I enjoy everything written by this author.