Bøker av June O'Donal

Benjamin Miller, elder statesman and family patriarch, watches the world, the country and the Miller family become more divided. Farmers' daughters are leaving by the thousands to work in textile mills; impoverished Irish immigrants are arriving by tens of thousands and young men head west seeking their fortunes. He worries about the future of his five grandchildren.Elijah Miller, a successful, fourth generation farmer at Riverview Farm, is concerned as young people are leaving Fryeburg and begins a local agricultural fair. He cannot understand how or why his sister can leave.Talented and fiercely independent, Rachel Miller is discontented with life on the farm and living in her mother's shadow. She leaves Fryeburg against her family's wishes to work in a textile mill in Biddeford. There is more in life for Rachel than tending a spinning jenny.Daniel Miller, local sawyer and pious abolitionist, discreetly continues the family mission along the banks of the Saco River. Benjamin sends this quiet grandson to Buffalo to attend the political convention of the Free Soil Party.Ten-year-old Isaac Miller, a generation younger than his siblings, is sometimes overlooked by his busy family. A friendship with an orphan from Ireland teaches him some valuable lessons.Thaddeus Pierce, the precocious only child of Joshua and Abigail Miller Pierce, is a journalist for the New York Post. He covers revolutions in Europe, the Great Hunger of Ireland and the California Gold Rush. However, it is his interview with Karl Marx, the author of The Communist Manifesto which divides the family. Author June O'Donal is a museum educator at the Remick Country Doctor Museum and Farm in Tamworth, NH, vice-president of the Fryeburg Historical Society, Director of the Hazel and Owen Currier Doll Museum of Fryeburg and a cancer survivor. She and her husband Wayne live in nearby Denmark, Maine and have two adult children.

America's first historical novelist, James Fenimore Cooper, reportedly drew upon Colonel Joseph Frye's journals to describe the 18th century Battle of Fort William Henry in his Last of the Mohicans. Now 21st-century historical novelist June O'Donal uses her extensive research of Fryeburg, the town Colonel Frye founded, to write her Fryeburg Chronicles. Carrying on the great tradition, she weaves historical figures and her own composite characters so well that readers will easily suspend disbelief and feel themselves living in 18th and 19th century Fryeburg as they consume Book I, Book II, and Book III. Then they'll be glad to know still more are in the pipeline. Hundreds of northern New England towns began just as Fryeburg did at the close of the French and Indian War in 1763, two hundred fifty years ago. Now retired after teaching history in Fryeburg for thirty years, I wish O'Donal's books had been available while I was still in the classroom. They're documented with lists of historical people, places, and events as well as footnotes, a bibliography, and the family tree of her fictional Miller family. The author loves American history and her enthusiasm infects the reader, especially anyone familiar with the Fryeburg locale. Thomas McLaughlin Retired history teacher Local newspaper columnist "For everything there is a season, and a time for everything under heaven." This is what the Miller family learns as they face deaths, births, laughter, mourning and new ventures in this family-friendly, historical novel.

The Fryeburg Chronicles: A Secret and A PromiseAfter reading Book I of June O''Donal''s Fryeburg Chronicles historical fiction series, I must say that I was quite eager to begin Book Two. In her remarkably well-researched work, O''Donal takes us to a simpler yet still well-established Fryeburg of 220 years ago, a time when the village was still small and when Fryeburg Academy began. Today''s Academy hardly resembles the single building that sprang from that vibrant edge-of-the-wilderness community of 1792, and yet the ideals of learning and excellence are as alive today as they were then.People and settings jump from the page and take on a life of their own that magically intertwines with who we are today and how we imagine those who lived long before us. I can envision the sounds of children swimming and fishing in the river and clamoring up the school steps even as the dust from the road floats up into the leaves of the elms and maples along Main Street. I can hear the sounds of the farmyard and the voices of the families moving about their days. I can feel the immense joy and crushing sadness that our forebears often experienced and which were never far from reach.Thank you, June, for bringing our roots to life.Timothy G. ScottDirector of Development Fryeburg AcademyOne man...one secret. Two slaves...two choices. Three brothers...one promise. Should one break man''s law to obey God? This is the question the Miller family must answer for themselves in this family-friendly, historical novel.

This debut novel of June O''Donal - set in early colonial Fryeburg - breathes real life into values, faith and work. It is the touching story of a homesteading family built around warmth, passion and acceptance as they lose a child to illness and take another child into their home. The writer clearly loves history and weaves a deep, tender and insightful story - never losing touch with the absolute duty of hard work and discipline.Ms. O''Donal has superbly done her research: from the work in the home to the work of the farm. She takes you into the daily life of the home and makes you feel that you are sitting at the family table. You are able to observe characters change and grow as they define lessons learned from daily hardship and struggle. The writer has drawn the personalities of her characters so deeply, that the reader develops a profound sense of intimacy, affection and understanding. This book is for anyone who loves to read about early colonial times. It is truly a window on the early history of Fryeburg, Maine and how life used to be. I look forward to Book II. Emily FletcherLibrarianFryeburg Public LibraryWhy did God allow this to happen? How do you learn to trust God again when He has taken away the most precious thing in your life? These are the questions Benjamin Miller and Grace Peabody must answer for themselves in this family friendly historical novel.