Blooming Prairie — Candace Simar

Book 4 of the Abercrombie Trail Series and finalist in the 2013 Spur Awards. Widow Serena Gustafson returns to Pomme de Terre, Minnesota, where her husband was killed during the Sioux Uprising. Her dreams of financial independence dissolve when land values plummet after a scourge of Rocky Mountain locusts. Evan Jacobson, homesteading in nearby Otter Tail County, takes a job driving mules over the Wadsworth Trail. Newlyweds Anders and Ragna Vollen stay with Evan's family while he is gone. Increasing Indian tensions in Dakota Territory threaten to spill over into Minnesota, renewing old fears and bitter memories from the 1862 Uprising.