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Book Summary and Reviews of Caroline by Sarah Miller

Caroline by Sarah Miller

Caroline

Little House, Revisited

by Sarah Miller

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  • Published:
  • Sep 2017, 384 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

Sarah Miller vividly recreates the beauty, hardship, and joys of the frontier in a dazzling work of historical fiction, a captivating story that illuminates one courageous, resilient, and loving pioneer woman as never before - Caroline Ingalls, "Ma" in Laura Ingalls Wilder's beloved Little House books.

In the frigid days of February, 1870, Caroline Ingalls and her family leave the familiar comforts of the Big Woods of Wisconsin and the warm bosom of her family, for a new life in Kansas Indian Territory. Packing what they can carry in their wagon, Caroline, her husband Charles, and their little girls, Mary and Laura, head west to settle in a beautiful, unpredictable land full of promise and peril.

The pioneer life is a hard one, especially for a pregnant woman with no friends or kin to turn to for comfort or help. The burden of work must be shouldered alone, sickness tended without the aid of doctors, and babies birthed without the accustomed hands of mothers or sisters. But Caroline's new world is also full of tender joys. In adapting to this strange new place and transforming a rough log house built by Charles' hands into a home, Caroline must draw on untapped wells of strength she does not know she possesses.

For more than eighty years, generations of readers have been enchanted by the adventures of the American frontier's most famous child, Laura Ingalls Wilder, in the Little House books. Now, that familiar story is retold in this captivating tale of family, fidelity, hardship, love, and survival that vividly reimagines our past.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"A master of historical fiction, Miller forges Caroline Ingalls into a formidable, complex pioneer woman, and adult fans of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series will delight in this portrayal of 'Ma.' Beguiling, pulse-pounding historical fiction." - Kirkus

"Not to be missed by Wilder's grown-up fans or those who enjoy historical fiction about the settling of the American West in the late 1800s." - Library Journal

"Miller excels at verisimilitude, bringing her setting to vivid life, including her exposition of the extraordinary difficulties of the pioneers' lot. She is less successful with her characters, who are so unrelievedly good as to rob the story of conflict, and, hence, drama. Nevertheless, Little House fans will welcome this new perspective even as it attracts new readers to the beloved series." - Booklist

"I was entertained, transported, and inspired by Sarah Miller's Caroline. Each passage was written with so much care and love, I now can't imagine reading Laura Ingalls Wilder's series without a copy of Caroline close at hand." - New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Shelley Shepard Gray

This information about Caroline was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Sarah Miller

Sarah Miller began writing her first novel at the age of ten, and has spent the last two decades working in libraries and bookstores. She is the author of two previous historical novels, Miss Spitfire: Reaching Helen Keller and The Lost Crown. Her nonfiction debut, The Borden Murders: Lizzie Borden and the Trial of the Century, was hailed by the New York Times as "a historical version of Law & Order." She lives in Michigan.

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