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Comment below for a chance to win an ebook or paperback of your choice.

I’m so grateful to my endorsers and their kind words about The Broken Weathervane (September 2, 2025). In thanks, I’m featuring each of them and their books on the blog.

Teaser for The Broken Weathervane

• Two co-workers seek the same information for opposite reasons
• Leslie’s quest to learn the truth about her family comes at a high cost
• Family drama meets mystery, deception, and thwarted academic aspirations

Back to Jane . . . 

New York Times bestselling author Jane Kirkpatrick researches true stories about real people and writes about their lives as historical fiction. Her focus has primarily been pioneer women of the Pacific Northwest. Her most recent book was Across the Crying Sands (May 20, 2025).

Some of Jane’s stories highlight pioneers on their journeys west. Jane herself is a pioneer of sorts, as a Wisconsin native who picked up and moved to the Northwest as a young woman. 

A fun fact for me was learning of Jane’s Wisconsin roots and her connection to the University of Wisconsin system where my husband attended a graduate program (UW-Milwaukee) and later worked as a researcher (UW-Madison).

Jane has been a guest on my Standout Stories blog twice: 

• The Healing of Natalie Curtis

• Across the Crying Sands & a Giveaway

Comment below to be entered in the giveaway for the book of your choice!

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Blurb for Across the Crying Sands (May 20,2025)

A Tale of Uncharted Adventure and Discovery Inspired by a True Story

In 1888 Mary Edwards Gerritse is a witty and confident young woman who spends as much time as possible outdoors on the rugged Oregon coast where she and her husband, John, have settled. The two are a formidable pair who are working hard to prove their homesteading claim and build a family. But as Mary faces struggles of young motherhood and questions about her family of origin, she realizes that life is far from the adventure she imagined it would be.

After losing the baby she’s carrying, grief threatens Mary, but she finds an unconventional way to bring joy back into her life–by taking over a treacherous postal route. As Mary becomes the first female mail carrier to traverse the cliff-hugging mountain trails and remote Crying Sands Beach, with its changing tides and sudden squalls, she recaptures the spark she lost and discovers that a life without risk is no life at all.

“Jane Kirkpatrick’s writing evokes a powerful sense of the challenges and strengths of women who settled the West.”–SANDRA DALLAS, New York Times bestselling author

In this inspirational historical Christian novel, a pioneer female mail carrier lives a life of resilience, including grappling with grief and the loss of a child and facing the challenges of frontier life.

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My thoughts on Across the Crying Sands

I was thoroughly captivated by Mary Edwards Gettitse and the indomitable spirit she brings to each dilemma and challenge. This immersive setting engulfs all the senses. The story flows well and kept my interest every step of the way. I highly recommend it!

I’m looking forward to reading more about Mary in With the Enduring Tides. 

Comment below for a chance to win an ebook or paperback of your choice.

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Coming soon . . . April 21, 2026

With the Enduring Tides: Inspirational Pioneer Historical Women’s Fiction Set in 20th Century Pacific Northwest America (The Women of Cannon Beach, Book 2) 

A Story of Resilience, Redemption, and Friendships That Endure

On the rugged Oregon coast in the early 1900s, the lives of a group of women intertwine through their shared pioneering spirit and the steadfast presence of Mary Gerritse. Struggling with her daughter Belle’s desire to live with her grandparents, Mary discovers her own mother facing illness and her father hiring a caretaker with a troubled past. Despite tensions, Mary leaves Belle with her grandparents, feeling guilt and uncertainty. When past secrets bubble over into trouble in the present, Mary’s identity is shaken.

As Mary seeks to heal her family–and herself–her friends provide comfort even as they face challenges of their own: Jewell explores questions about her own identity, Henrietta navigates managing a homestead, Virginia seeks refuge from an abusive situation, and Olivia faces the heartache of lost love. The women must endure to find encouragement in each other and refuge in the faith that brings strength amid great uncertainty.

“Kirkpatrick’s sense of time and place and her understanding of the trials of women of another century have made her one of the West’s most beloved writers.”–Sandra Dallas, New York Times bestselling author

Inspired by a true story, this heartwarming tale of female friendship, family reconciliation, and pioneering spirit set on the Oregon coast explores themes of identity, forgiveness, and finding strength through faith and community in early 1900s American West.

Jane’s book The Memory Weaver brings to lifeEliza Spalding Warren who, as a child, was captured by the Cayuse Indians during a 1847 massacre. Beneath the Bending Skies features Mollie Sheehan who aided the Nez Perce tribe during the mid-1800s. 

The Healing of Natalie Curtis relates how Natalie gathered and preserved the music and traditions of Native Americans during a time when the U.S. government was trying to snuff out their culture.

Blurb for The Memory Weaver

Eliza Spalding Warren was just a child when she was taken hostage by the Cayuse Indians during a massacre in 1847. Now the young mother of two children, Eliza faces a different kind of dislocation; her impulsive husband wants them to make a new start in another territory, which will mean leaving her beloved home and her departed mother’s grave–and returning to the land of her captivity. Eliza longs to know how her mother, an early missionary to the Nez Perce Indians, dealt with the challenges of life with a sometimes difficult husband and with her daughter’s captivity.

When Eliza is finally given her mother’s diary, she is stunned to find that her own memories are not necessarily the whole story of what happened. Can she lay the dark past to rest and move on? Or will her childhood memories always hold her hostage?

Based on true events, The Memory Weaver is New York Times bestselling author Jane Kirkpatrick’s latest literary journey into the past, where threads of western landscapes, family, and faith weave a tapestry of hope inside every pioneering woman’s heart. Readers will find themselves swept up in this emotional story of the memories that entangle us and the healing that awaits us when we bravely unravel the threads of the past.

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My Thoughts about The Memory Weaver

Eliza Spalding Warren is another real-life protagonist, the daughter of a missionary family to the Nez Perce people in Oregon Territory. As an adult, she’s trying to piece together the dark memories of her childhood–particularly being taken hostage at age ten–while also wanting to move beyond them. I was plunged into Eliza’s world which alternated between her mother’s diary excerpts, glimpses into Eliza’s childhood, and her current challenges as a mother and wife.

Comment below for a chance to win an ebook or paperback of your choice.

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Blurb for the The Healing of Natalie Curtis

Classically trained pianist and singer Natalie Curtis isolated herself for five years after a breakdown just before she was to debut with the New York Philharmonic. Guilt-ridden and songless, Natalie can’t seem to recapture the joy music once brought her. In 1902, her brother invites her to join him in the West to search for healing. What she finds are songs she’d never before encountered–the haunting melodies, rhythms, and stories of Native Americans.

But their music is under attack. The US government’s Code of Offenses prohibits American’s indigenous people from singing, dancing, or speaking their own languages as the powers that be insist on assimilation. Natalie makes it her mission not only to document these songs before they disappear but to appeal to President Teddy Roosevelt himself, who is the only man with the power to repeal the unjust law. Will she succeed and step into a new song . . . and a new future?

Award-winning author Jane Kirkpatrick weaves yet another lyrical tale based on a true story that will keep readers captivated to the very end.

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My Thoughts about The Healing of Natalie Curtis

I was fascinated by the passion, drive, and accomplishments of Natalie Curtis in  this biographical historical fiction. Jane Kirkpatrick captures the pain of Native Americans who’d fallen silent due to government mandates. But Natalie won’t let them be forgotten. As she fights for rights of Native Americans, she finds healing for herself. See my complete review here

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Comment below for a chance to win an ebook or paperback of your choice.

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Excerpt from the Q & A about The Healing of Natalie Curtis

What were the challenges of telling Natalie’s story? Which historical parameters were imposed on you? 

Jane: I wrote during the pandemic! So my usual visits to museums, libraries, etc. weren’t as available as with previous stories. Trying to respect traditions without being able to easily access tribal historians, for example, presented challenges. I relied on Natalie’s own work and how she understood her Native friends/interviewees at that time. 

I found reports of Indian agents that helped get a sense of what life—from a white perspective—might have been like for native people. I had to decide where to start the book (the night of her New York Philharmonic debut) and where to end it (the publication and delivery of her book to the Native people who had allowed her to record them). 

How do you want this novel to resonate with your readers?

Jane: Before I write any of my novels, Natalie’s story included, I answer three questions from the book Structuring your Novel by Meredith and Fitzgerald. What is my intention, what is my attitude (what do I feel deeply about), and what is my purpose in writing this story (or how do I hope a reader will be changed by reading this book). 

I write many pages but get the answer down to one sentence each that I post at the top of my computer so when I get lost in telling the story, I can look at those answers. It keeps me writing and not going off on tangents which I love—like what colors of Crayon were available in 1907?

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<<< Comment below on any of Jane’s books for a chance to win the paperback of your choice. >>>

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Here’s a sampling of Jane’s most recent standalone historical fiction titles . . . 

• Beneath the Bending Skies (2022)
• The Healing of Natalie Curtis (2021)
• Something Worth Doing (2020)
• One More River to Cross (2019)
• Everything She Didn’t Say (2018)
• All She Left Behind (2017)
• This Road We Traveled (2016)
• The Memory Weaver (2015)

Blurb for Beneath the Bending Skies

Mollie Sheehan has spent much of her life striving to be a dutiful daughter and honor her father’s wishes, even when doing so has led to one heartbreak after another. After all, what options does she truly have in 1860s Montana? But providing for her stepfamily during her father’s long absences doesn’t keep her from wishing for more.

When romance blooms between her and Peter Ronan, Mollie finally allows herself to hope for a brighter future–until her father voices his disapproval of the match and moves her to California to ensure the breakup. Still, time and providence are at work, even when circumstances are at their bleakest. Mollie may soon find that someone far greater than her father is in control of the course of her life–and that even the command to “honor thy father” has its limits.

Beneath the Bending Skies is a sweeping story of hospitality, destiny, and the bonds of family.

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My thoughts

The protagonist Mollie Sheehan Ronan was a real person, making this story all the more compelling. I was definitely caught up in the tension of Mollie’s ongoing dilemma: honoring her father’s demands or following her heart.

Check out the NovelPastimes interview for an introduction to Mollie.

Learn more about Mollie here.

Comment below for a chance to win an ebook or paperback of your choice.

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Back to Laura . . . On a similar note . . . 

If you enjoy dual timeline fiction about family dynamics in a small town Midwest (Wisconsin) setting, try The Broken Weathervane (launched September 2). Two co-workers seek the same information. One wants to publish it; the other has good reasons to keep it hidden. The timeline alternates between 2015 and the 1950s. Check out the reviews and book trailer here.

If you like historical fiction, you might enjoy A Hundred Magical Reasons (launched January 2025). This story spotlights L. Frank Baum, author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, his friendship with a young girl, and his impact through the decades. Set in Holland, Michigan, this dual timeline novel alternates between 1980 and the early 1900s. Read more and watch the book trailer here. 

Here’s what Jane said about A Hundred Magical Reasons:

If you like Southern fiction and small town/rural stories about family dynamics and secrets, you might enjoy my novel All That Is Hidden. Set near North Carolina’s Smoky Mountains in 1968, the story spotlights the bond of family and the connections of a tight-knit community. Northern exploitation threatens as a father’s hidden past catches up to him and tests family ties. Learn more and watch the trailer here.

All That Is Hidden is now an audiobook! 

I invite you to join my monthly newsletter for writing updates, freebies, and giveaways. Sign up and I’ll send you a prequel and 7 Oz-inspired recipes: StandoutStoriesNewsletter.com  

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Jane Kirkpatrick bio:

Jane Kirkpatrick is a New York Times and CBA best-selling and award-winning author of over 40 books and 50+ essays. Her many historical novels, most based on the lives of actual people, speak of timeless themes of hardiness, faith, commitment, hope, and love.

Her works have sold over 2 million copies, and have won literary awards such as the Wrangler (National Cowboy Museum), WILLA Literary (Women Writing the West), Will Rogers Medallion (Will Rogers Foundation), and the Carol (American Christian Fiction Writers).

She is a Wisconsin native and graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Communications and Public Address and holds a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in Clinical Social Work. Prior to her writing career, she worked with Native American families on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in Central Oregon as a mental health and early childhood specialist for seventeen years. She was also the director of the Deschutes County Mental Health Program in Bend, Oregon. Jane and her husband Jerry now live in Redmond, Oregon with their dogs. Learn more on her website.

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Join me next time for a visit with author Becky Van Vleet.

Meanwhile, have you read any of Jane Kirkpatrick’s novels or other Pacific Northwest fiction you’ve enjoyed?

Answer in the comments below to be entered into the GIVEAWAY for one of Jane’s books!

Ever reading,

Laura

Sign up for my monthly newsletter and receive the 7 free Oz-inspired recipes: StandoutStoriesNewsletter.com