Laura's Shadow

Laura's Shadow is part of the Doors to the Past series, which takes readers to historic American landmarks. Each story brings past and present together, mixing mystery, intrigue, faith, and romance.

In De Smet, South Dakota, in 1890, the young women of town follow two unwritten rules: stay indoors during a snowstorm, and never give your heart to Cap Garland. Orphaned Mariah Patterson has kept only the first. After years of scraping by with her brother Charles, she faces marriage to Merrill Gowan, a devoted man whose steadiness is hard to get excited about. Mariah decides to lay her feelings before Cap anyway, even though his affections are fixed on Laura Ingalls. She believes her love is strong enough to break both ties that stand in her way, and she is ready to risk everything to prove it.

In De Smet in 1974, Trixie Gowan is the fourth generation of Gowan women to live in the big farmhouse on the town's edge, though she has since moved out. She now has her own small apartment in Minneapolis and writes advertising copy for a neighborhood newspaper. Her coworkers tease her with the nickname Prairie Girl, which inspires her comic strip 'Lost Laura,' about a bespectacled girl in a calico dress finding her way in the city. The strip is a quiet act of defiance, since Trixie grew up in a home where the name Laura was never spoken. When her great-grandmother Mariah's failing health brings Trixie back for a visit, two things give her reason to stay: the caring attention of physician Dr. Campbell Carter and a family secret that GG reveals bit by bit in their conversations.