I bought this set of three books, and couldn't do anything but read, until I finished them!! My father imigrated to North Dakota from Sweden in 1905, and the book is so real, it brought back so many childhood memories, even though it is set 20-30 years before. The isolation and the harshness of the freezing temperatures of the winters was so very real, even though we were a family of ten children.But the love and respect that families had for each other made all the hardships worth while, and this love will stay with me forever. My grandchildren have a great heritage, and ask me many questions, as their life in California in the 2000's is so very different. The land my father homesteaded is still in our family, and is now in the 3rd generation. It has increased to over 2000 acres, and still sustains the Nelson family, and the 2 generations who live on the land.We had lots of Indian graves on the land ,and our father taught us to respect, and never disturb them. The Indians were still around when he first arrived from Sweden. What an adventure back in time!!!! Can't wait to get the continuing series!! Thanks, Ms. Snelling!!!

I'm am from ND and lived there for 25 yrs. I have done research into my own family tree and have found a lot of what Snelling refers to is acurate. I was reaffirmed by how much the settlers portrayed in the series rely on their spirituallity and family values. It makes one long for the "Good ole Days" at times, and weep right along with the Bjorklund's and thier close network of freinds, during the bad. I often found myself praying for them as well. I have recommended this book to several of my ND freinds and I hope that it helps others to understand the power of a good book.

From the first sentence, Snelling captures your attention and your heart with the struggles of a Norweigan family. Sit back and enjoy the rugged Dakota Territory. It is an experience not to be forgotten.

I recently started to read this book after many years and am amazed at how wonderfully descriptive the writer is. She makes one see so clearly what she is writing that you feel like you are there with the characters. She makes you see that no matter what race or color, we are all the same. We feel love, hate, happiness, sadness and all other emotions of the human spirit. She lets us see what everyday Indian life was like. I have some favorite books in my library that I read over and over and I am sure I'll read this one again.

This story of Cynthia Ann Parker, is an imposible book to put down. I read it 3 times in one month! I'm reading it again for the fourth time and I am enjoying it just as much as I did the 1,2,and 3 time I read it. Once you start reading it you fall so deep into the book that you feel like you are Cynthia Ann,and are looking into Wanderer's deep black eyes. You will laugh,and be scared, and weep with Cynthia Ann as Lucia St. Clair Robson, tells us the dramatic life of Cynthia Ann. You can picture what each character looks like and you can feel what each feels like. I'm going to read this book probily more than one thousand times more.

I found this book years ago and fell in love with it! I have since read it hundreds of times and am currently reading it again This is a book you can get lost in. It takes you into how her world might have been and settles her and her family into your heart forever. This is a MUST read book that you will want to reread over and over and over again

J.E.White does an incredible job of weaving stories and Truth together to crank out a work that is both readable and enlightening...

A great book in a few cases...

1) If you are a Christ-follower and have a friend who has questions... and you're not sure where to go for answers... they are very accesible in this book.

2) If you have a friend who would read it... who is searching Truth themselves... Buy them the book (and you read it, too, so that you can discuss the concepts).

3) If you are seeking Truth... Definitely a good one to read. I know, there's a lot of stuff out there that's out of balance, or hard to wade through... not so here.

I stumbled across this book a year ago at a thrift store. I had been out of the faith for 18 years, and this helped me immensely get past many of the misconceptions I had from my youth. It was as though this was written exclusively for my life and thoughts.

I now give away this book to seekers or potential seekers. Its size isn't daunting, but gives an excellent overview of many of the most stifling objections to Christianity. It starts out, appropriately, setting the mindset for the reader to read and explore the contents with an open mind. Many stories and biblical references, as well as references to other resources.
With this, I was able to look at my spiritual journey anew, was open enough to find a church that satisfied my adult need for spiritual growth (even though completely different than the denomination of my youth) and now even my wife had accepted Jesus as her Lord.

This answers many of those nagging questions that we use for excuses for not really examining our faith.

What about evolution? Is the Bible really credible? Why is there so much suffering? Aren't all religions essentially the same? Why do Christians commit sin? Why do Christians seem so strange?

These are the sorts of questions that get answered. I wish I had read this as a teenager.

I would recommend giving this book to anyone who needs help getting over these common hurdles that keep us from the Christian faith.

This book absolutely consumed me from front to back. Unfortunately, it being just the 1st in a series, I am going crazy waiting for the second one to arrive, and knowing I will have to read the whole series, I dread knowing there will be a last one. I can not stop thinking about Abbey and Zeke since I finished this book. I just don't want to believe they don't really exist. What a great book!!

Wow!
I bought Sweet Prairie Passion 6 years ago and it's still one of my all time favorites. The entire Savage Destiny series is a classic. The story of Zeke and Abby will never grow old. If you
haven't read the entire Savage Destiny series, be sure that you do so because you wont want to miss out this great series!

I read this book years ago and fell in love with it. Abby and Zeke are two characters I will never forget. Their trials and love are brought out in this book wonderfully. Abby goes through some very hard times and you can just feel Zeke being pulled towards her even though he doesn't want to. When I finished all seven I felt like I was losing a good friend so I just started over again!! :)You will laugh and then cry and then laugh again. The series has a special place on my bookshelf where it will always stay. Thanks Ms. Bittner for a very special series.

Anyone who has held an antique in hand and felt the magnetic pull of the history of the object will enjoy this book. I had not previously been a student of Native American history or a fan of the western book genre, but Coldsmith succeeds in creating characters to whom I could relate as fellow human beings. The device of linking past to present through the spanish bit is ingenious.

Don Coldsmith paints a picture of a time almost forgotten. I own the whole "Spanish Bit" set. What a great journey.

In "Trail of the Spanish Bit," physician Don Coldsmith brings to life an interesting and varied cast of characters as they very well might have been at the time of early European contact with North America's native peoples.

Coldsmith's "Elk Dog People" are a prairie native nation that is a composite of a number of horse culture tribes. However, when they first encounter "Heads Off," the marooned Conquistador, the People are part of a pedestrian, stone age culture. For better or worse, this first Euro contact changes the People and their way of life forever.

Coldsmith is an excellent story-teller. His characters are well-developed and not the cardboard stereotypes usually associated with the genre. Dr. Coldsmith is a literary talent with a great imagination.

If you have any interest whatever in Native Americans or western history, buy this book!

I love the Cowboys Series, Luke and Matt are my favorites, I was sorry to hear that Mr. Greenwood can not finish the series at this point. I really hope that his publisher will let him finish the remaining orphans to make the series complete..oh please,oh please

sad in New Hampshire

I thought this book was well written and heart wrenching. I read it several times and every time I gleaned new nuances from it. I loved this book.

Very good book as all of Greenwoods books are.
I have the cowboy series, and Matt is one of my favorite books in the series. A very well written book about sexual child abuse and the effects it has on childern, even in the eighteen hundrens.
I was heartbroken to learn the Lee Grteenwoods publishers have made him start on a new series before finishing the Cowboy series.

This is indeed a terrific guidebook for B.C. Previous editions, however, included Banff and Jasper National Parks, which admittedly are in Alberta, not B.C., but are usually included in Canadian Rockies travel itineraries. There's no excuse including Yoho (which is just over the border) but not Banff and Jasper, except to sell more books. So this is not an improvement.

I know of no better book to my home province of British Columbia than this Moon guide. On my travels as a semi-retired geologist, I also carry copies of the Lonely Planet and Frommer's book and have reviewed both of them and others at Amazon.com, but Moon Handbooks British Columbia stands alone for its usefulness. The other books have their good points, but this one encapsulates everything one needs to enjoy the wonders of the province, whether it's their first trip or they live here. It covers every single corner of BC and is thorough and up to date.

The Moon guide is cleverly written and arranged to appeal to all budgets. The bulk of the text relates to towns and parks of BC, with informative coverage of everything from museums to fishing opportunities and wildlife viewing. Each section ends with details of the best places to stay and recommendations for dining. If you're camping out or RVing I'd suggest also getting a campground guide, but the Moon book suggests at least one campground in each town, each of which the author has obviously visited. Motels are also detailed, and over previous editions I'm yet to find fault with the author's choices. Ditto for bed and breakfasts and restaurants.

In my opinion, thois is definitely the best allround guidebook for British Columbia

I've used Moon Handbooks for years and they are simply the best! I have the Montana, Wyoming, Washington, Alberta, and now the British Columbia book, and I've never been disappointed. These books include the usual stuff, such as lodging, restaurants, and recreation, but they also include local history and cultural information that makes them far superior to most guides. Buy a Moon Handbook that covers the state you live in--you will be surprised at how much you can learn. If you're going traveling, they are indispensable.

Caleb's adventures take him through the Civil War, buffalo hunts, Indian Wars, and barroom shoot outs. During these times he meets a Comanche slave woman who kidnaps him, and a renegade Arapaho who likes scalping people, and finally meets Marisol a Mexican beauty who gives him his children and wins his love. Some times the story slows down quite a bit and other times you won't want to put it down.

I'm going to add my five stars to the list, because Mike Blakely deserves it. This book delves into the life of young Caleb Holcomb, and we get to watch him grow up. It, like Kirby Jonas books I'm always touting, is not your standard western, but it is a good homespun tale all the same. Caleb is heroic without being super human, and you will fall in love with his affable, musical character who is always finding almost too much trouble for him to handle. Read Mike Blakely and anything by Kirby Jonas, and you won't need to turn anywhere else. If these two authors ever got together they would have a lot in common and a lot to talk about. You can bet they would be friends!

This book is EXCELLENT !!! Anyone who has any intrest in the old west should read this book !!!! It is absolutely amazing !!!!! The writer has such style and grace !!! He is an amazing writer and I think he is great!

I gave "This Calders Sky" five stars, because I believe it is one of the best books I have read in a long time. I am not much of one for reading, but when I started reading this book, I was finished by the next day. I could not put it down. From the beginning of the book it gets you hooked. I have always said that if I am unable to really get into a book by the first three or four pages, then I will probably not stick with it.
This book is a love story, but more. It is based in Montana, and two seperate families. The Calder family, and the O'Rourke family. Maggie, is a young, innocent, and inexperienced in some ways, young lady. Chase, on the other hand, is not much older, but you get the feeling that he is more experienced in the ways of the world. In the town they live, the Chase family is the name everyone knows.
Maggie and Chase, in certain ways, are two totally opposite people. They both are set in their own ways, but they are madly in love with each other. Of course, they have times when you would think that it is the end of their life together, but it always turns out for the best.
Maggie is experiencing love, hate, trust, and intimacy, and she must decide whether to stay with the man she really loves, or leave and never turn back. There are family issues that are standing in their way of happiness. Chase is attempting to take it slow, as Maggie is experiencing love and being intimate. As the love grows between them, you can feel the passion growing as well. Just as you think nothing can come between Maggie and Chase, problems between the families develop, and it causes pain and hate to develop. Chase really loves Maggie, but it seems as though they are fighting their emotions for one another. Maggie and Chase eventually end up in the same house together, but the way they act towards each other, you would think it was a battlefield. Chase and Maggie eventually give in to their emotions. Chase, Maggie, and their son finally bond as a family should. They face the world together as a family. Maggie and Chase were meant to be together, and after all of the heartache and pain they went through, their love ended up being strong enough to pull them through.
I can honestly say that I would recommend this book to anyone. There are continuing books beyond this one, but I have not had a chance to read them yet. If they are anything like this one, I know I will like them.

Is this the final book? I dunno but i'd be great to read more about this legacy of a family. I wish my family went back 5 generations like that. Gotta buy the whole lot.

I read this book in 2 days, didn't want to put it down. I plan to read all 5 books in this series. The story is captivating, yet believable. I liked the strength of the characters, and the beauty of the land. The Calder family is one deserving respect not for their wealth but for their willingness to fight for what is their own. Looking forward to continuing with the story.

In the first pages of this book, author Frederic Morton reveals the reason he has such an interest in Austrian history. His grandfather died in World War I and his father came to the United States from Vienna. If you read books such as Rebecca West's Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, you can't help but hate the Habsburg monarchy that ruled for centuries over Austria and much of Eastern Europe. The Austrians shamelessly mistreated their subjects, using divide and conquer strategies to keep their client states in line. The Austrians also looted the distant reaches of their vast holdings for Austrian benefit. Many of the difficulties found in the Balkans today can be traced to the inept government of the Austrian Empire. That's one view. The other can be found in this exquisitely majestic book. This text is not a panegyric to Habsburg rule, however. Rather, it is a tribute to the fabulous city of Vienna during the waning days of empire, when World War I was looming on the horizon of time.

Vienna is presented as an international city that attracted numerous historical figures. According to Morton, within a period of months Vienna was home to Adolf Hitler, Josef Broz (known to history as Marshal Tito), Uncle Joe Stalin, Leon Trotsky and Sigmund Freud. These characters lived out their own private paths to destiny within blocks of each other. Morton really makes these people come alive with his narrative. We see Hitler in a homeless hostel where he has his own personal chair that no one dares to sit in and occasionally launches into oratorical tirades against Jews and foreigners. Tito works at a car factory and likes to scope out chicks on the weekends (which is much easier to do when you don't have a chest full of medals!). Trotsky indulges himself in French literature and lively debate at the cafes, where he has a brief encounter with a dour Stalin. Sigmund Freud engages in an intellectual war with Carl Jung and writes numerous papers in psychology that would come to form much of what the common man knows about that discipline. Stalin arrives to research a pamphlet before returning to Russia and a three-year stretch in Siberia. What all of these stories ultimately prove is that Vienna was truly a hub of Europe and an important city of the time. It's still pretty neat to think about all of these huge figures moving about in the same city at the same time, though. Morton shows us how almost all of these figures were influenced by their time in Vienna. Hitler talks about it in Mein Kampf and Trotsky wrote about it as well. About the only figure that doesn't seem to be changed is Stalin, who stomps and grumbles about in shabby peasant clothes. It was interesting to learn that Stalin beat Lenin at chess seven times in a row, though!

What Morton succeeds in doing with this book is humanizing history. Today we only see Hitler in old newsreel footage screaming his head off at rallies. In Vienna, Hitler often gave money to his fellow boarders who can't afford food or rent. Sigmund Freud, who always looks so stodgy in those old pictures, loved to hunt mushrooms with his children while wearing outlandish local garb. Even the Habsburgs are painted with a brushstroke of decency. Franz Ferdinand, the sullen heir to the throne who was assassinated at Sarajevo in June 1914, comes off much better here than in most history books. Morton paints him as a dove surrounded by hawks. Franz constantly tries to avert war, especially with Serbia. Of particular note is the relationship the archduke had with his wife, Sophie Chotek. Chotek, who Morton constantly refers to as "morganatic," was not of the right blood to marry a Habsburg heir. She rarely got to share in the royal activities, and when she did, courtiers of the archduke's father, Franz Joseph, belittled her endlessly.

The end of the book shows us the dramatic countdown to war, as the archduke and his wife drive to their deaths and into history. The account of the assassination is very interesting and well worth the read. I feel it rivals the Kennedy assassination in terms of sheer incompetence and idiocy. When someone tosses a bomb at the archduke's motorcade, these morons actually continue the procession! Franz Ferdinand's security detail should have been shot for this action alone. Of course, the procession wasn't stopped and the result was war. The whole mess reeks of conspiracy.

This is an excellent book that can really spark an interest in history. Morton uses lots of sources, such as newspapers, to convey the actual feel of the time. A few pictures thrown in helps to place faces with names. Often, Morton tells us what the weather was like on a certain day before he unfolds the events. This gives the text an insight often missing in scholarly accounts. We can almost see things happening. That being said, this really isn't a book I would use for research. It is more of an interpretative text to provide entertainment. If I were teaching a class on this time period, I would assign this book in conjunction with other, more serious books. Very nice, indeed!

A wonderful book written about the cosmopolitan city of Vienna before the outbreak of WWI. Morton's style of writing makes this an enjoyable read this is not dry history. In 1913 Vienna was host to men who would make an indelible impression on the 20th century. Just to name a few, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Hitler, Tito, Freud, and the Hapsburg Royal family all within one square mile of each other. Morton gives a good portrayal of the lives of these men during their formative time spent in Vienna. He also gives a good account of the tension between Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand who wanted to reform the Austro-Hungarian Empire to include the room for nationalist aspirations of the Slavs, and Emperor Franz Joseph who wanted to maintain the status quo. I t makes one wonder how European history might have been different if Franz Ferdinand had not been assassinated and was given the chance to reform the Empire.

As a retired Army officer and political philosopher,I recommend this book to all who are interested in history of WWI or to those who want to learn more about the "gilded age" of Europe.

An excellent and lovely book that reads almost like a novel, it is also an alarming book if you read it, as I did, in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. The diplomatic and military blunders that produced World War I seem, at this moment, to provide a kind of blueprint for starting a war that no one really wants to start. Some of the correspondences between then and now are startling--for example, the super-ultimatum given to the offending country with the expectation that the terms cannot be met. Altogether I would rate this book higher than Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August, though, to be fair, Tuchman's book is more of a military history and gives only a tiny look at the opening shots of WWI--the murder of the Archduke who was the heir to the Austrian throne--whereas Morton's book establishes the Archduke Franz Ferdinand as a major character in the narrative, then reveals that the Archduke was (ironically) a pacifist who was trying to avert a war in Europe, and then places the Archduke's story in the context of the larger story of Vienna, Austria and Europe. One of the many pleasures that the book offers is an evocative look at the old, whimisical royalty-besotted Vienna just as it was begetting the new Europe--Freud, Trotsky, and Stalin all figure in the story of pre-WWI Vienna as do a number of other major political and artistic figures. Vienna was a prosperous, beautiful, pleasure-loving city that perversely found a way to start a horrific and self-destroying war.