Nancy E. Turner · 1998 · overland

Nancy E. Turners 1998 novel, the fictional diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, inspired by the authors own great-grandmother. It opens in 1881 with seventeen-year-old Sarah setting out by covered wagon with her family across the deserts of the Southwest to the Arizona Territory, a journey of Indian raids, bandits and terrible loss. Settling on a ranch outside Tucson, Sarah grows from a fierce girl into a formidable woman, running her land, raising her family and finding a hard-won love with the cavalry officer Jack Elliot.

1. 1
   San Angelo

   The Prine familys wagon train forms up in west Texas, near San Angelo, to set out across the desert for the Arizona Territory.

2. 2
   El Paso

   West along the hard trail toward El Paso and the Rio Grande, harried by bandits and the fear of raids.

3. 3
   Tucson

   At last into the Arizona Territory and the dusty town of Tucson, where the surviving family means to make a new life.

4. 4
   The Ranch

   Sarah builds a home on a ranch outside town, with a year-round stream and trees in the desert, and learns to work and defend the land.

5. 5
   Phoenix

   A hazardous journey north to Phoenix, a town Sarah calls as hot as the devils frying pan.

6. 6
   The Ranch

   Home again to the ranch, where Sarah raises her family, buries her dead, and names a star for the man she loved.