The Oregon Trail is one of the more well-known tracks that pioneers traveled to get from the eastern United States to the west coast. Many of the travelers died from disease, hunger, accidents, or weather disasters. Those that made it across the prairie and over the mountains had to chose whether to stay the course into the fertile Oregon Valley or head south to search for gold in California.

The Oregon Trail Romance Collection features novellas by authors Melanie Dobson, Pam Hillman, Myra Johnson, Amy Lillard, DiAnn Mills, Anna Schmidt, Ann Shorey, and Jennifer Uhlarik. Some of these stories take place over the entire length of the trail, others over only a section. All of them show strong men and women who have to make difficult choices and hope God will grant them a chance at love during the hardest of times.

Westward expansion is a challenging time in our nation’s history. Those who were here before the Europeans saw the newcomers as a threat and acted to protect their land. The pioneers who packed their entire lives into a rickety wagon they hoped would survive bumpy land, rocky cliffs, and fast moving water, were often seeking a better life. While some admittedly were looking to get rich, others knew their only chance to escape poverty and servitude was the dangerous path west.

The authors of The Oregon Trail Romance Collection do a superb job of holding the tension between those realities. These may be romance stories, but the authors did anything but romanticize an often deadly situation. Yet, out of the hardships, hope and love bloomed.

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