Spirit of the Valley — Jane Shoup

In Virginia, 1883, some things you can run from. . . some you have to fight.

Pauline Ray is on the run, and she won't get far. With thirty-four dollars, two small children to feed, the cold coming in fast, she has no idea how she'll hide her tracks from her monster of a husband, let alone support her family. But Pauline is done with convention, and with nothing from her old life worth preserving, not even her name, she's free to become a whole new person.

All she has to do is singlehandedly turn a run-down homestead into the haven she and her children need, in a town full of wagging tongues and watchful eyes. But one man is watching her with more than judgment. Pauline would never have considered his scandalous proposal in her days as an obedient, suffering wife and daughter. But "Lizzie" might dare to accept him--his love, his work, and his secrets--and wrest her story toward a happily ever after all her own. . .