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Fire Along the Sky [Secure eReader (recommended)/Mobipocket/Microsoft Reader]
eBook by Bantam Books
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eBook Category: Romance
eBook Description: With epic sweep and breathtaking adventure, Sara Donati's bestselling saga of an Early American family's struggle for survival in the Northeast wilderness continues with the story of an indomitable woman and an unforgettable journey of redemption across a young nation threatened by the flames of war. The year is 1812 and Hannah Bonner has returned to her family's mountain cabin in Paradise. But Nathaniel and Elizabeth Bonner can see that Hannah is not the same woman as when she left. For their daughter has come home without her husband and without her son--and with a story of loss and tragedy that she can't bear to tell. Yet as Hannah resumes her duties as a gifted healer among the sick and needy, she finds that she is also slowly healing herself. Little does she realize that she is about to be called away to face her greatest challenge ever. As autumn approaches, news of the latest conflict with Britain finds the young men of Paradise--including eighteen-year-old Daniel Bonner--eager to take up arms. Against their better judgment, Nathaniel and Elizabeth must let him go, just as they must let his twin sister Lily, a stubborn beauty, pursue her independence in Montreal. But on the eve of the War of 1812, an unexpected guest arrives from Scotland: It is the Bonners' distant cousin, the newly widowed Jennet Scott of Carryckcastle. Far from home, Lily and Jennet will each learn the price of pursuing their dreams and the possibility of true love. But it's Hannah herself who must risk everything once more--this time to save Daniel, who's been taken prisoner by the British. As the distant thunder of war threatens Paradise, Hannah may learn to live--and maybe love--again in one final act of courage, duty, and sacrifice.
eBook Publisher: Bantam Books/Bantam Books
Fictionwise Release Date: August 2004
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Available eBook Formats [Secure eReader (recommended)/Mobipocket/Microsoft Reader - What's this?]: SECURE MOBIPOCKET FORMAT [868 KB], SECURE MICROSOFT READER FORMAT [1.8 MB] - Requires Microsoft Reader 2.1.1 for PCs, or Microsoft Reader 2.2.2 on Pocket PC 2002 handheld devices. Some older Pocket PCs can be upgraded. Learn More., SECURE EREADER (RECOMMENDED) FORMAT [691 KB]
All formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
eReader (recommended) ISBN: 9780553900 Microsoft Reader ISBN, Adobe Acrobat Reader ISBN: 0553900641 MobiPocket Reader ISBN: 9780553900644

Early September 1812
Paradise, New-York State
Hot sun and abundant rain: Lily Bonner said a word of thanks for a good summer and the harvest it had given them, and in the same breath she wished her hoe to the devil and herself away.
But there was no chance of escape. Even Lily's mother, whose usual and acknowledged place was at her writing desk or in a classroom, had come to help; everyone must, this close to harvest. The women must, Lily corrected herself: the men were in the cool of the forests.
She glanced up and caught sight of her mother, all furious concentration as she moved along her row. She swung her hoe with the same easy rhythm as Many-Doves. They were an army of two marching through the tasseled rows, corn brushing shoulders and cheeks as if to thank the women for their care.
For all their lives the Mohawk women had spent the best part of every summer day in the fields tending the three sisters: corn, beans, squash. But Lily's mother had been raised in a great English manor house with servants, and she had not held a hoe in her hands--white skin, ink-stained fingers--until she was thirty. Elizabeth Middleton had come to New-York as a spinster, a teacher, a crusader; in just six months' time she had become someone very different.
Lily understood a simple truth: the day came for every woman when she must choose one kind of life or another or let someone else make the choice for her. For some the crucial moment came suddenly, without warning and when least expected; others saw it approaching, pushing up out of the ground like a weed.
It was an image that would not leave her mind, and so she had finally spoken about it to her mother, holding the idea out in open palms like the egg of an unfamiliar and exotic bird.
And how it had pleased her mother, this simple gift. She sat contemplating her folded hands for a moment, Quaker-gray eyes fixed on the horizon and a tilt to her head that meant her mind was far away, reliving some moment, recalling a phrase read last week or ten years ago. When she spoke, finally, it was not with the quotation Lily expected.
She said, "There are so many choices available to you, such riches for the taking. The very best advice I can give you is very simple. You have heard me say it in different ways, but I'll put it as simply as I can. When it comes time to choose, try to favor the rational over the subjective."
At that Lily had laughed out loud, in surprise and disappointment. Who else had a mother who would say such a thing, and in such a studiously odd way? Other people were satisfied with quoting the bible and old wives' wisdoms, but Lily had a mother who preferred Kant to the Proverbs. Who made decisions with her head when she could, and was convinced that in doing so, her other needs would be satisfied.
Certainly she could point to even the most unconventional choices she had made in her life and argue that they were rational, and more than that: that she was happy with the choices she had made. As most of the other women Lily knew were happy with the lives they had.
Her cousin Kateri had chosen a husband from the Turtle clan at Good Pasture and gone with him to live among the Mohawk on the Canadian side of the St. Lawrence. It was too early yet to know how well she had chosen, or how badly. Other women misstepped and struggled mightily forever after; there were a few like that in Paradise, burning bright with the anger they must swallow day by...
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