Most Popular Books by Lynda Durrant

Carefully researched, "Imperfections" takes readers inside a Shaker community in the 1860s and tells the story of a spirited young woman who is determined to be herself.

Echohawk was a little boy when he was taken from his white family and adopted into a Mohican tribe. For years Echohawk has been speaking and thinking in the Mohican language. He enjoys hunting with his adoptive father Glickihigan and younger brother Bamaineo. Yet as time passes, Glickihigan thinks an English education will help his sons in the changing world and sends them to be schooled by white people. It''s then that Echohawk''s earliest memories return. Soon the time will come for him to choose between the world of the Mohicans and the world he came from long ago.

On the morning of her twelfth birthday, Mary Campbell gets angry with her mother and storms out of the cabin—never to return. As she picks wild strawberries and plans her apology, Mary is captured by Delaware Indians and plunged into a life that is fearsome, strenuous, and utterly unlike the one she knows, beginning with the journey on foot from Pennsylvania to the Delawares'' new home in Ohio Territory. As the idea of escape becomes less feasible and less urgent, Mary finds herself adapting to the routines, traditions, and beliefs of her captors, and discovers within herself reserves of strength she hadn''t known were hers. The life of the real Mary Campbell, taken by Delawares in 1759, is the basis for this enthralling, historically detailed adventure, and for the perceptive portrait of a young woman finding her place in a culture vastly different from her own.

Jennie Hodgers dressed as a boy for the first time in order to help support her impoverished Irish family with a shepherd’s wages. Then her arrival in America confirmed her belief that the world offers better opportunities to young men than to young women. So Jennie maintained her outward identity as Albert Cashier, serving as a grocery clerk in Queens, New York; as a farmhand in Ohio; and as a recruit in the 95th Illinois Infantry during the Civil War. Not only did she survive three years in combat with her true identity undiscovered, she chose to continue living as Albert for nearly all of her life. Combining careful research with vivid insight, Lynda Durrant portrays Albert Cashier as a soldier who served his adopted country and his comrades with loyalty and heroism, and Jennie Hodgers as a woman of a woman of astonishing strength, courage, and adaptability—a woman sometimes at war with her own secrets. Author’s note, bibliography.

Follows the true story of a young heroine whose preference for adventure over a life of privilege leads her to become one of the key figures in the final battle of the American Revolution.

Set against the turbulent backdrop of eighteenth-century America, the thrilling sequel to Echohawk has Echohawk and his family embarking on a perilous journey to the Ohio Territory to find more of their people.

Pedrito''s Polish parents survived the horrors of Hitler''s forced labor camps. He was born in a Displaced Persons camp in West Germany after World War II. Venezuela gave the family visas, but Pedrito''s parents longed to live in the United States, where their three boys could live in the land of freedom, a place with dishwashers, chocolate bars, schools the size of a Venezuelan village. A place where larger-than-life opportunities abound. As the years pass, and the waiting becomes more and more difficult, Pedrito befriends Dog, a South American rooster with a caw so deep he sounds more like a dog barking than a rooster''s cock-a-doodle-do. Finally, the visas come through--but what do to with Dog? He''s given the family the courage of a survivor along with a household rid of monster spiders, giant cockroaches, and huge rattlesnakes. Can they survive in a place as strange as Cleveland, Ohio, without their protector and hero? A true story of courage, humor, and heart, and learning how circles are strongest when they''re opened, ''Dog'' has been written for all ages, including young adults.

Marvel Pritchard thought she''d found the perfect gentleman caller. Beau Gideon is an educated scion from an old Southern family. The Gideons'' old money comes from their antebellum cotton empire. Their new money comes from Beau Gideon''s commercial real estate holdings. Beau lives in the Gideon House, a gracious old home on Pink Magnolia Lane, the most prestigious street in town. Her mother, Gladys, who has been training Marvel since childhood to marry into the closed-ranks high society of wealthy Southerners, should be thrilled. Marvel invites Beau over for dinner to meet her parents before they start dating, as is proper, and Beau behaves as a perfect gentleman caller. Instead of being thrilled, Gladys Pritchard warns Marvel away from Beau, but won''t tell her why. Marvel dates him anyway, and mysterious things start happening. She sleeps for hours and hours and wakes up in a strange bedroom in the Gideon House. She always wakes up dressed in peach-colored silk negligees. Has someone drawn blood from her arm? What is going on? On the Nesbitt Farm, Eva Nesbitt-Snow is the happiest she''s been in years with her husband Patrick and their twin boys. Her violent ex, Adrian, shows up on the farm and wrecks havoc on the Nesbitt sisters'' lives. The Nesbitt sisters, their men, Elizabeth''s fierce dog, Oden, and at least one ghost unite to help Ava and destroy Adrian. As the two revenge storylines run parallel, mysterious pasts and shocking antecedents weave them together in the fourth book of the Nesbitt sisters series, The Gentlemen Callers.

Ariel Bradley is Washington’s boy spy who pretends to be a country bumpkin (a “Johnny Raw”). He ‘stumbles’ into General Howe’s camp “looking for the mill” his father has sent him in search of. In reality, he is assessing the strength and numbers of the British and their Hessian (German) allies. After he is sent on his way by the unsuspecting English, he reports this to General Washington and his staff. This information proves key in what became known as the Battle of White Plains.

Hopes are as high as the marijuana crops growing in the barn. The farm is thriving, but nothing stays good forever. Buried secrets seep from the ground as the Nesbitt sisters and the town of Cookham, South Carolina search for answers. Ruby, the youngest Nesbitt sister, cuts her roots and spreads her wings to discover it is not blood that makes a family-it''s the bond of love and the willingness to accept it.

In the 1790s, an eccentric young man nicknamed Johnny Appleseed feels a calling by God to travel through the American West planting apple seeds that will feed the hungry and produce more seeds for planting and trading.

Pennsylvanie, 1760. Mary Caroline, l''aînée de la respectable famille anglaise Campbell, est enlevée le jour de ses douze ans par des Indiens Delaware. Son destin est tracé : elle devra remplacer la petite-fille défunte du grand sachem. Adoptée par le clan des Tortues, elle ne rêve que d''une chose : rejoindre les siens, et mettre fin au cauchemar. Mais les saisons passent, et l''adolescente comprend qu''elle est peu à peu devenue une véritable Indienne. Qui est la vraie Mary Caroline Campbell ? L''histoire authentique d''une enfant déchirée entre deux cultures.

A 12 ans, Faucon Blanc est déjà le meilleur chasseur de la tribu : lapins, marmottes et dindes sauvages tombent impitoyablement sous ses flèches. Pourtant, on murmure autour de lui qu''il porte malheur, à cause de ses yeux clairs, de sa peau trop blanche... car Faucon Blanc n''a pas toujours fait partie de la tribu. Qui est-il exactement ? Le jour où certains souvenirs lointains refont surface, le jeune garçon doit affronter son incroyable histoire...