De Smet, South Dakota 1890 & 1974
Mariah Patterson came from a very poor farm family. She fell in love with a family friend who just happened to be in love with someone else. Mariah’s life will not turn out as she hoped. Trixie Gowan is the great-granddaughter of Mariah Patterson. She’s called home when her great-grandma is supposedly on death’s door and finds herself brought into a family secret that will change everything, stemming from animosity between Mariah and the famous author, Laura Ingalls Wilder. Mariah and Trixie will see how the past can continue to change the present and the future.
LAURA'S SHADOW is the ninth book in Allison Pittman’s Doors to the Past series. These books take a unique look into how the past affects the future and connect family members in new ways. The connections usually revolve around a famous United States landmark. In LAURA'S SHADOW, Mariah and her great-granddaughter Trixie are dealing with a long-held family secret, involving Laura Ingalls Wilder and where she lived. There is heartbreak, love, discord, and drama as the women in this family deal with loss, love, and the men in their lives.
Allison Pittman’s LAURA'S SHADOW has a unique way of showcasing someone very famous through the story of fictional characters. As readers are taken into the past, reliving Mariah’s life story and following along as Trixie tries to unravel the family secret, they will be kept guessing about what the secret is and why there is a dislike of Laura Ingalls Wilder. The Doors to the Past series is an interesting way to connect two generations of family and find out about landmarks throughout the country.
De Smet, South Dakota—1890 Young women growing up in De Smet live by two rules: don’t go out in a snowstorm and don’t give your heart to Cap Garland. Young Mariah Patterson only managed to obey one. Orphaned and having devoted her youth to scrapping out a life with her brother Charles, Mariah finds herself with no option but to marry the devoted—but dull—Merrill Gowan. Throwing caution to the wind, she seizes an opportunity to lay her feelings at Cap’s feet, even though she knows Cap sees the world through the torch he carries for Laura Ingalls. Mariah is certain her love for Cap will be strong enough to break both bonds, and she’s willing to risk everything to prove it. De Smet, South Dakota—1974 Trixie Gowan is the fourth generation of living Gowan women residing in the sprawling farmhouse on the outskirts of De Smet. Well, former resident. She’s recently acquired her own bachelor girl apartment in Minneapolis, where she works writing ads for a neighborhood paper. She might live and work in the city, but her co-workers still call her Prairie Girl. Thus the inspiration for her comic strip—"Lost Laura"—in which a bespectacled girl in a calico dress tries to make her way in the city. The name is a quiet rebellion having grown up in a household where she’d been forbidden to mention the name, Laura. But when her great-grandmother Mariah’s declining health brings Trixie home for a visit, two things might just keep her there: the bedside manner of Dr. Campbell Carter and the family secret that seems to be spilling from GG’s lips one conversation at a time.
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