The Journal of Callie Wade

Miller adds a feminine touch to the frontier in the voice of 18-year-old Callie Wade, who describes a wagon-train journey from Missouri to California in 1859. In a diary given to her by her late mother and in letters to a friend back home, Callie records daily routines, dangerous encounters and illnesses and tragedies. In addition to her family--her father, her brother, Jack, and her sickly sister, Rose--the entourage includes Zach Koch, a preacher's devilish son; blacksmith Quinn McGregor, Callie's eventual soul mate; and Grace Hollister, courageous widow and mother of four. Soon, Callie is torn between her budding love for Quinn and her responsibility for tending Rose. The journey is perilous, and sometimes even the resilient Callie has trouble maintaining her faith. But the wheels of the wagon train grind relentlessly on, stopping for nothing--not childbirth, nor cholera, not even heroic death. Homespun epigraphs from Callie's late mother intrude on the story, and Zach's sudden change of heart after he attempts to rape Callie is not entirely credible. While pleasant, Callie's simple, homespun voice is rather flat, and the narrative carries none of the lyric beauty of another recent epistolary novel of a wagon train journey, Karen Osborne's Between Earth and Sky. (July)