Be Thou My Vision Series

The transcontinental railroad created a world of opportunity for anyone willing to step aboard. Twenty-year-old Amanda O'Rielly is among the adventuresome who did. The daughter of an Irish homesteader father and a Blackfeet Indian mother, Amanda is eager to see the world. Her plans become entangled when she stumbles across evidence that links a corrupt local lawman to a vicious crime. A rock slide on the train tracks strands the travelers, leaves a U.S. Army payroll vulnerable to outlaws, and places Amanda?s life in danger. U.S. Marshal Thomas Benton is working with the army and steps in to escort Amanda to safety as events escalate toward conflict. The most difficult struggle looms in her heart as Amanda follows Thomas through all the dangers of the American West in the year of 1870.

Two years have passed, and Amanda O'Rielly continues to wait for the man who holds her heart. Life in the luscious Bitterroot Valley, however, is bustling. A population boom in the mining camps has bolstered beef production and thrown open the door to the lucrative enterprise of raising cattle. As the flood of settlers pushes west, new friends and acquaintances sprinkle the valley with life and color. It also intensifies the competition over grassland and encourages a parade of prospective suitors that wear at Amanda's determination to wait for Thomas. A series of mishaps forces Amanda to lean on God. The pain of loss and hardship bring a special appreciation for the blessings in life, and as Amanda dreams of her wedding day, she finds that she has been sweetly blessed.

When Emily Collins returns to the Bitterroot Valley for a summer visit, her identity is mistaken for that of a wealthy, notorious woman with the same first name. While the error begins on an amusing note, it quickly develops into sour repercussions. Now twenty-five-years old, and still unmarried, her fierce ambition stumbles at a crossroad with her desire for a husband and a family. As the daughter of a diligent, faithful frontier preacher, she has seen both extremes society has to offer when her father retires at the family home of Boston. Her father disapproves of the man Emily hopes to marry and heartily endorses a summer trip far away from the social life of Boston. It is during her stay with the O'Rielly family that she learns of a scandal that engulfs the family of her former beau. Fifteen-year-old Rorie O'Rielly, a Cree Indian, adopted as a youngster by the O'Rielly family, eagerly awaits the return of the Nez Perce buffalo hunters as they head homeward from the plains to the lush valleys of the Wallowa. He has been granted the job of bringing back a small string of horses for breeding stock. A promise to a dying man catapults him into a summer of life-or-death knife-edge adventure, unexpected fortune, and stretches his loyalty to a Christian brother. Emily unexpectedly fulfills her goal of making a splash in life when she steps forward with the humble task of helping lonely children in a government Indian school. She also battles a shrewd businesswoman to rekindle romance with her teenaged first-love, Anthony O'Rielly. Rorie and his two younger brothers stumble into the acquaintance of the colorful Doc Holliday and eventually, a guarded and reluctant friendship. Throughout the entire summer, Emily struggles with the complications that result from and the townspeople who are convinced that she has deceived them by impersonating their senator's daughter.