This book describes the people, the attitude, and the lifestyle of Montana - from 1870 until today. The Crazy Mountains continue to evoke the same vast, colorful emotions from those of us who have had the priviledge to grow up beneath them. A must read for anybody who has lived in Montana - and a "should read" for anybody else. A colorful, vivid reminder of home - one of my favorites.

I lived in Montana for two years and a friend suggested I read this book. I bought a copy and could not put it down. After I finished it two days later, I bought his other book "A Day Late And A Dollar Short". Ten years later, I am still reading them. Spike doesn't just tell you a story, you live it. If you have any interest at all in ranch life, horses, family, humor, or Montana history; these should be on your list. You'll learn what "slaunchwise" humor and "going to the mountains" is all about.

It's unfortunate that he only wrote two books.

As your friend and fellow author put it, I too, "hope God gives you a horse" Spike.

This book is an excellent piece of work. I probably am somewhat biased as like the author, I too spent my formative years in the Big Open of Eastern Montana. I can certainly sympathize and relate to alot of what old Spike says about nature, family and ranch life in general.

This is one of my favorite books and I've recommended it to many of my friends. All of them have loved it. If you like horses, Montana, the west, or just plain good writing this book is well worth the investment. If you have never been out west read this book before you come because Spike will give you a good idea of what it's like to live out here.

This book is a western novel about a cowboy accused of commiting a crime. The first part of the book describes his love of the land, horses, and ranch life. His aims and goals in the future.A person who takes and gives back to nature. Suddenly, his life changes, he is accused of a crime. He evades the law by entering the "bad lands" of the Black Hills in the Dakotas. He fights to clear his name and prove his innocence. And for the young girl who loves him. He has no idea how she is reacting to the events taking place at the time. The author's color and descripition are well written without fullness. His timing is also well defined with the ability to keep your attention, but not so rapid as to tire you out. It is woven to intrigue you and keep your interest. Touching on the incidentals of the living life as a cowboy. My being raised around cowboys and fimilar with ranching, his descrptions are well chosen and are not wasteful. This was one book I truly hated to see it end. Andy Juniper a wrote another book, a western novel that is also out of print, I would like to read it also. I read Sweet Grass in the late '40s about 3 or 4 times and would love to read it again. James Scoggin

With a previous interest in the time period but not a regular reader of the romance genre, I was very pleasantly surprised by and for quite a while now enthusiastically recommending Gail Jenner's "Across the Sweet Grass Hills." I would like to do the same here. Give a book that should hopefully be the first in a long line of work from Gail Jenner a try if you are a fan of either historical fiction or romantic adventure.

The story places courageous, beautiful Liza Ralston and heroic half white, half Picuni, Red Eagle into the events leading up to the little known 1870 Marias Massacre. With a very crisp, fast-paced style, the novel details the trials and struggles of the would be lovers from two worlds at war. In fact, the fine, understated writing style and well explicated characters help give the work a satisfyingly authentic flavor and lift the work above standard genre fare. The meticulously researched details further strengthen the book, but never overwhelm the main story line. This is a very skillfully balanced work of realistic details and poignant historical romance that is sure to satisfy readers looking for adventure, looking to learn about a tragic turn of history, or a touching romance set against war and tragedy.

With three-dimensional characters and passion for her story, Gail Jenner authentically recreates the raw and rugged world of Montana in the late 1800s. - Award-winning author Jane Kirkpatrick, ALL TOGETHER IN ONE PLACE and NO EYE CAN SEE

Set against an authentic historical background, written by an author with the soul of a poet, this debut historical romance speaks, in a lyrical voice, of a love that transcends the hate, fear, and ugliness of the bloody cultural clash between whites and Native Americans in the late 1860's and early 1870's. - EPPIE Award winning author, Patricia L. White, P.S., I'VE TAKEN A LOVER (Crescent Blues Review)

Gail Jenner's ACROSS THE SWEET GRASS HILLS is a love story, and yet to say that touches only the surface of what takes place within the pages of this remarkable book. The words she has written sing, her research is extraordinary, and the plot mesmerizes. - Vella Munn, BLACKFEET SEASON and SOUL OF THE SACRED EARTH (WWW - 2000 Willa Award Nominee)

Based on a true event, ACROSS THE SWEET GRASS HILLS brings to life a sad reminder of American history...A must read for any lover of the historical American West. - Kim Murphy for the HNR (Historical Novel Review)

ACROSS THE SWEET GRASS HILLS is brimming with history, packed with emotion, and told with imagination strong enough to bind it into a fast-paced, memorable tale. - Priscilla Maine, ANGELS UNAWARE

Gail Jenner has taken great pains to portray two cultures accurately...I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys historical romance or historical adventure. - Mary Lou Rich, COURTING KATE and THE TOMBOY

Visit for a day the Pikuni, a tribe of Blackfeet living in 1870 Montana, and you'll want to remain a week. Stay the week, and you'll want to dig-in for a month...But be warned, if you do, be willing to share the heartbreak of their lives and be willing to have your own irrevocably changed...Jenner's smooth prose, written deeply from the heart, completely enthralls...Emotionally true and meticulously researched with bibliography, I rate this book 4+ stars. - Meredith Campbell, RIGHTEOUS WARRIORS (a Sime~gen Historical Review)

ACROSS THE SWEET GRASS HILLS is a dramatic, fictionalized re-enactment of an actual incident in the history of our country, one that represents a sorry aspect of the westward movement...Through thorough research, Ms. Jenner brings history alive. She recreates a band of the Pikuni (Piegan Blackfeet) and gives us a taste of their lives. - Jane Bowers, Romance Reviews Today

Gail Jenner takes the reader back to a time in the American West when Native Americans live freely and the land was still fresh and untamed. Set during 1869, the unlikely romance between a young white woman and a half-Pikuni man develops midst the backdrop of a turbulent time in America's past... Jenner creates an exciting and beautiful picture into the history of the American West and Native American culture...A well-crafted story, ACROSS THE SWEET GRASS HILLS tells the poignant story of love that knows no boundaries. - Jennifer Russell, The Romance Reader's Connection

ACROSS THE SWEET GRASS HILLS is a wonderful blend of history and romance. The mood and scenery sweep the reader into the time period, and the details and characters keep one turning the pages. - D. Eraldi, SETTLER'S LAW (an Historical Romance Writer's Review)

Gail Jenner has created an intricate and carefully crafted world among a band of the Pikuni Indians in the 1890s. She invites the reader to feel the emotions of a stubborn and independent city girl (Liza) as she encounters the physical and moral challenges of the western frontier. Liza's journey to find herself and understand her heart is a timeless message and one that Jenner captures perfectly. Jenner's attention to historical detail is flawless from the detailed account of how the Pikuni tribe prepared for the winter months to their migratory patterns as the seasons changed. If you are interested in a novel with a plot that will keep you riveted to your seat and wanting for a sequel Gail Jenner's Across the Sweet Grass Hills is a must read.

Working together, getting along and working...working, these are some of the things Gary Paulsen describes in his book Clabbered Dirt, Sweet Grass. It's a non-fiction book about the four seasons on a farm. The farmer's main conflicts are working on the land and dealing with hard times. For example, the frost might ruin the crop or kill the wheat they were growing, and they wouldn't have any of the wheat. My opinion about this book was -- it's boring. The plot was slow, confusing and the story had no characters. When I picked up this book, I thought it would have a character, but I was disappointed when it didn't. But there were some good things about the book. There were great illustrations, and good descriptions. For example, Gary Paulsen described how winter "would die, would die, would die and be over with." If you are interested in farms and great illustrations, you'll like this book.

Mr. Paulson writes a beautiful, touching, book that reflects his undying love of nature and the land. Take the time to read the forward to the book that explains the motive behind it's writing. Picture the two men sitting next to the deceased workhorse as the farmer unravels his story of his life and his land. Contrast the respect for the land and nature's cycles of "old time" farmers, versus the "forced yields" of today's factory farms. I have read this book several times and each time I gain a greater knowledge and respect for the wonders Mother Earth reveals, if you treat her with respect and take the time to listen. I have recomended this book to dozens of people - city and country folk alike - and all have been glad that I did so. Every person who has felt a link or calling to the earth should read this book.

I grew up on a small family farm in rural Michigan, the type of farm that was vanishing even as I grew up on it. Since I grew up in the 1950's, many of the episodes and scenarios depicted in Gary Paulsen's Clabbered Dirt, Sweet Grass pre-date my youth, but enough do not that I can assure you that Paulsen has captured the sights, the sounds, the tastes, the smells and even the textures of the events he pictures in words. New calves, for example do not know how to drink from a bucket and must be taught, because the purpose of having a dairy cow is the sale of her milk, and if the calf is allowed to suck, it will as Paulsen says "ruin the cow for milking," while the calf cannot possibly consume all of the milk the cow produces. "So when the cows were milked a small amount was poured into a bucket and the children had to teach them how to drink. They would suck on anything, the ends of our coats, mittens, ears, and we would stick our fingers in their mouths and start them sucking and lower our hands into the warm milk in the bucket so they would suck the milk up through our fingers. It took them only a short time to learn to suck the milk directly, slamming their heads into the buckets as they would slam them into the cow to make the milk flow so that milk splashed up and out and into our faces, down our clothes, hot new milk, spring milk." Or as he says of milking, "the hands work in a rhythm as old as all rhythms, the rhythm that is the giving of milk, so that the person becomes the calf and the cow the mother and the milk hisses and sputters into the white foam." For those who have never known farm life, Gary Paulsen's poetic prose will provide a vivid and accurate picture of life as it used to be on the family farm. For those who, like my 80-year-old father, knew the family farm of the 1920's-1950's, this book will evoke rich memories. For those of us who knew farm life afterward, the memories will be selective. But they're there. They're there.

"The Fragrance of Sweet Grass: L.M. Montgomery's Heroines and the Pursuit of Romance" by Elizabeth Rollins Epperly exposes many insights about Montgomery's literary works. Most interestingly, Epperly connects home, self-awareness, and romance. Home is where you discover yourself. Not until this discovery can the heroine go beyond herself to recognize her male counterpart. The heroine establishes herself so she can find a hero equally self-aware. Epperly makes the point that although Montgomery subverts convention by having self-aware, independent women not marry until later in life, they do marry and thus conform to convention. Therefore, Epperly suggests that in the 1990s we may not see Montgomery as a feminist. However, I believe she is wrong. Montgomery is a feminist because her heroines are stongly aware of what they can do. Montgomery gives them choices of career, family, or both. Epperly gives an excellent analysis of Montgomery's work, although I do not agree with everything she posits. The book is thoughtful and interesting, providing insights for further investigation.

In 1886 Lindstrom, Minnesota, twenty-nine years old Lili Tornquist believes her life is over as her father is remarrying after fifteen years as a widower. The new spouse will take over the household that Lili has run for more than half of her life. When a letter comes from a distant cousin Gunnar Jorgeson asking Lili to marry him, she decides to accept and moves to his Montana sheep ranch.

Gunnar leaves claiming business almost upon Lili's arrival. However, she meets people coming through who stop for grub. This includes mine worker Tom Hawes and mine lawyer Charles Weatherby. When her marriage fails because he is "not manly" when it comes to women so will not make love to his new wife plus he has an alcohol problem, Lili moves to Butte. Charles and Tom, who has become a union organizer, court her while she works as a singer, the only work she can find. She likes both men, but she wonders if she loves either of them? If yes, she has to wonder if she will she consider marriage if either proposes following the shambles of her first marital endeavor.

SWEET GRASS is an engaging frontier romance that brings to life Big Sky country in a realistic manner to include pollution, strip mining, and unsafe working conditions. The story line vividly describes late nineteenth century Montana through the interactions of the ensemble cast. Though Gunnar never provides a strong rationale for why he asked Lili to marry him or how he knew so fast her change in status, readers will appreciate this colorful Americana tale.

Harriet Klausner