Widow 1881
by Sara Dahmen

Publication Date: February 12, 2018
Coppersmith Press
Paperback & eBook; 312 Pages
ISBN: 978-1640580237

Genre: Historical Fiction/Pioneer/Western
Series: Flats Junction Series, Book #1

 

 

A pregnant widow.

The last Sioux in town.

A half-breed grocer.

An immigrant doctor.

When very carefully proper widow Jane Weber discovers she’s pregnant, she escapes eastern society and 1880’s Boston life to work as a housekeeper in the Dakota Territories. Though Jane secretly researches and assures her new employer that she’s hearty and strong, the rigors of the prairie and the rawness of the people in Flats Junction are more defined than she expects. She must live with the enigmatic Widow Hawks (the last Sioux in town), and attempts to run a household, pick up nursing, and befriend the town’s half-breed grocer. Life in the territories is both simple and difficult, and tries Jane’s character in many more ways than merely learning to survive in the pioneer west. Will her pregnancy prove too much? Will she marry the cowboy who courts her? Or will her wall of lies and glassy cage of respectability shatter?

WIDOW 1881 is the first book in the Flats Junction series.

Praise for Widow 1881

“Author Sara Dahmen has clearly researched the era, vernacular and settings of her richly complex story. She brings into focus the joys and deprivations of life on the American frontier, the rigid proprieties that pertained in relations between the sexes, and the cutting edge of racial hatred that rankled towards the local displaced and marginalized American Indians. She sheds light on fascinating small details of everyday life in 1881—cookery, clothing and medical care. Dahmen also conveys a keen awareness of the sometimes desperate needs of a woman’s heart, as her heroine wavers between her unexpected passion for Patrick and the possibility of a respectable, but unexciting, match with someone else. Captivating and vividly portrayed, “Widow 1881 ” is a delightful read that is refreshing and original as it is entertaining.” – Chanticleer Book Reviews

“It’s easy to write flowery prose; spare language in which every word pulls its weight is much harder. More difficult still is using such prose to paint a picture of rough-and-tumble frontier life while avoiding cliché and giving the reader a viable sense of a bygone era in which life was slower-paced and values meant something. Ms. Dahmen does all this in spades and it’s easy to see why this book won the Grand Prize in the Laramie Awards for Western Fiction.” – Nicole Evelina, multi-award winning author, including an IndieB.R.A.G. Medallion

About the Author

Sara Dahmen is a successful entrepreneur, cookware manufacturer, metalsmith, wife, and mother of three. You can usually find her speaking, knuckle deep in the garden, or banging on a copper sheet at her apprenticeship using tools from the 1800’s. She has published over 100 articles as a contributing editor for local and international publications and spoke at TEDx Rapid City. Usually, she’s enthusiastically writing, but Sara also owns and operates House Copper and Housekeeper Crockery: American kitchenware lines inspired by Jane Weber’s time in the kitchen making coffee and flapjacks.

For more information, please visit Sara Dahmen’s website and the Flat Junction series website. You can also find her on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Goodreads.