Paradise Series

Before Paradise (Book 1) Unbidden tears slipped out of the corners of my eyes. We were going to have been married next summer. Fear drove me forward faster. With each step, my chest constricted, feeling as though my insides were turning outward. I clutched at my side, a sharp pain forming in it, and concentrated on breathing deeply. A lifetime of images flashed in front of me. There would be no wedding. I would never the chance to know him intimately. Gone was the privilege of growing old with him.

Humming, I tried to drown out the voices of imminent demise. Exhaustion threatened to overtake me while urgency pushed me onward. The mountains still loomed tauntingly in the distance. My lungs cried out for much needed oxygen until at last I crumbled. He was out of reach, no more than nine miles and several lifetimes away, and there was no way to get to him.

College Senior Melanie Woods is finally on the verge of obtaining all she has ever wanted – a degree from a reputable university and marriage to her high school sweetheart – but when a mysterious package containing an antique pocket watch arrives and sends her unexpectedly into the past, she is compelled to consider viable possibilities for an alternate future.

As Melanie desperately searches for a way back to her own era, she if forced to take on the hardships of daily frontier life as a means to her survival. Through these experiences Melanie finds the strength she never knew she had.

Paradise  (Book 2) For the most part, I feel like I’ve adjusted well to my new life—having left my old one in 2003. I continue to pass my days as a hired girl in a hotel. Matthew continues to improve after the attack of August Welch and his mob. Though the attack is still pretty obvious, Matthew seems to be slowly recovering and has been able to manage his cattle and land along with all that entails. More importantly (at least where my selfish interests are concerned) he continues to be able to travel the overland route to spend an afternoon with me each week. I don’t know that I’ll ever have enough life experience to fill all of these empty pages, but the gift was a kind gesture even so.
So begins the diary kept by 23 year old Melanie Woods, who has been living in the town of Wellsville, Utah since the fateful day when a mysterious pocket watch sent her from the year 2003 back to the year 1858. Since that day, after waking up in the middle of nowhere, she has learned many of the skills of frontier life and along the way met and fallen in love with Matthew Harris, a rugged fur trapper turned rancher.
Now, two years later, she is preparing to marry. Already miscommunication over their relationship nearly caused Melanie to abandon the valley forever. Another disputation over water rights turned violent and led to Matthew being beaten, bloodied and left for dead. At last it seems that finally there is nothing more to stand in the way as they prepare to begin a new life together.
In this stirring second book in the Paradise series, rediscover Melanie, Matthew and the love that drew them together in the first place.