Blue Horizons, by Irene Bennett Brown, portrays the status of women during the frontier period with wrenching accuracy. It's hard for contemporary readers to envision a time when "the gentler sex" had few legal protections and were basically the property of their husbands. Her story continues with the characters from the first book in the series, Long Road Turning, and focuses on the courageous Meg Brennon. Hunted by a sadistic husband who has already crippled her for life and will do anything to get her back, Meg attempts to get a legal divorce at a time when the courts were cruelly disposed to dismiss claims of mental and physical abuse as "provoked" by the victims. By exposing her location and new identify to her husband, which she must, if she appeals to the courts, she risks incurring more abuse or even death. In St. Louis, she befriends Hamilton Gibbs an excellent lawyer and truly compassionate human being who is awed by the strength of the disparate group of women who are creating the town of Paragon Springs in Western Kansas. Not only is Blue Horizons a moving, face-paced story, Brown's details on women's rights in the 1880's could serve as a text for sociology students. Adding to the tension are attempts to destroy the fiber of the precious fragile community by a rancher, Jack Ambler, who sees town-building as providing legitimacy for the homesteaders. Blue Horizons is a masterful blend of fiction and history. Definitely recommended for the discerning reader.

No Other Place is the third book in Irene Bennett Brown's Women of Paragon Springs series. Aurelia Symington, who was born to the comforts of the South,is widowed, penniless and left with small children. She survives a bleak journey to Kansas only to be quickly abandoned by her brother-in-law after she arrives at his desolate homestead appealing for help. In the first book, Long Road Turning, Aurelia was befriended by the compassionate women of Paragon Springs, who all too well understood the rigors of life at the survival level. Aurelia's yearning for safe places, safe people and her aversion to loss nearly undermines her chances of lasting romance. However, as the series develops, against all odds, she not only overcomes her fear of taking risks with people, she accepts the burdensome but exhilarating position as president of the town company. With this book, the reader of this fascinating series begins to understand the breadth and depth of Brown's research. No Other Place with its lively depiction of town-building is energized by the struggle to bring civilization to the prairie. This volume also details little known aspects of the bloody county seat fights that plagued Kansas and the underhanded tactics used to attract the all-important railroads. Her depiction of the constant struggle of Kansans to cope with extreme weather is superb. As we have come to expect from this first-rate author, Brown's skillful portrayal of women's issues under-girds all the action.

The sheer scope and importance of Irene Bennett Brown's series, the Women of Paragon Springs culminates with her fourth book, Reap the South Wind. The aviation industry was born in Kansas! The first helicopter is displayed in a museum in Goodland, Kansas. Brown brings history to life with these superb books and one's awareness of the centrality of Kansas to American history grows exponentially with each volume. One of the marks of excellence in any novelist is the ability to see stories and the importance of struggles where others cannot. Brown vividly demonstrates that her inner vision is second to none. The panorama of the Great Plains is realized with Reap the South Wind. The story turns to Lucy Ann Walsh, and the rough and tumble period of Kansas Populist politics. Mud-slinging was developed to a fine art and there is plenty to expose in Lucy Ann and her brother Lad's past. Opponents do not hesitate to sabotage Lad's run for governor. Having lost her husband in the famous Run to the Cherokee Strip, Lucy Ann had planned to spend the rest of her life living quietly on her little parcel of land. She changes when she attempts to shield her new neighbor and his ridiculous flying machine from constant ridicule. She gains further notoriety as a suffragette and avid advocate for health and sanitation. The triumph of a town and the indomitable spirits of the courageous women who founded the durable community is Americana at it's finest. Well done!

If you enjoy western novels, such as Little House on the Prairie and Lonesome Dove, you will enjoy this novel by Irene Bennett Brown. From the moment you begin reading, you are drawn into the lives of her characters---from main character Meg and her tumultuous past, to lives of orphans Lucy Ann and Lad, to the antagonist, rancher Jack Ambler. Romance is quietly woven throughout the story, but is not a main focus of the novel. Brown writes simply, with no bad language or sex. And the lives of her characters are believable, as well as her description of wild, western Kansas in the late 1800's. This is a book you will love and even your grandma could read and enjoy.

This book is the BEST book i've ever read!! It's a great page turning book of women and children on the open plains of western Kansas.

Irene Bennett Brown wastes no time in engaging the reader with heart-warming characters and a suspenseful, yet logical plot. This book is a marvel of accuracy in depicting details of homesteading. The story races right along, yet evolves so logically from real life/real time situations that the reader is never in doubt that her characters set-backs and triumphs could have happened just the way she describes. It is to Brown's credit and enormous skill that her lean pared prose still gives a masterful portrait of sympathetic characters worth writing about.