Cheney Duvall, M.D.

She had a dream, but reaching her goal seemed as dark as night... Fresh from medical school in the 1860s-and a woman at that-the young Dr. Cheney Duvall struggles to find a position. She has almost given up hope when Asa Mercer turns up. He wants her services to chaperone and care for two hundred brides-to-be on a sea voyage from New York to Washington Territory. Cheney jumps at the opportunity. Accompanied by an unlikely nurse, Shiloh Irons, Cheney finds herself facing an arduous voyage and dangers for which her medical training didn't prepare her.

Cheney faces two enemies-superstition and greed... Cheney Duvall has proven herself as a true doctor to those 200 brides with whom she traveled to the West. But arrival in Seattle with a string of medical successes during the voyage does not open any doors for her in this frontier town-she's "just a woman." Returning east, she finds an invitation to a remote spot in the Ozark mountains where there are no doctors at all. But she runs into walls of illiteracy, superstition, and immovable distrust of Yankees-most especially focused on an "edjicated female thinks she's a real doc." How will she overcome centuries of hate and mistrust?

Cheney is back in familiar surroundings, but her heart yearns for something else... Cheney returns to New York from the Ozark Mountains, where she worked hard trying to care for the mountain folks. New York brings new challenges. Cheney now treats New York's wealthy elite as part of a private practice she shares with Devlin Buchanan, the handsome doctor who had once proposed to her. When an outbreak of cholera sweeps the city bringing tragedy in its wake, Cheney must make a choice: can she remain in a privileged cocoon when just miles away there are poor people who desperately need medical treatment?

With New Orleans as their destination, Cheney Duvall and her nurse, Shiloh Irons, leave behind the glittering lights of New York City and travel first to Charleston, South Carolina, intending to stay for only a short time. But the purpose of their stop immediately draws them into the plight of this war-torn Southern city, in the painful throes of Reconstruction and carpetbagger policies after the Civil War. As Cheney and Shiloh are embroiled in the political, social, and economic troubles that plague the city, they also are drawn into events related to the beginnings of the Knights of the White Rose, a fraternal order of white supremacists. Cheney and Rissy, her companion, find that they may not only be involved in social conflicts-their very lives are in danger!

A disturbing letter from Cheney's great-aunts brings her to their New Orleans plantation-but what she discovers is more dangerous than she imagined! Performing rituals and "warnings"-leading to mysterious illnesses and crop failure-a cult is trying to scare Cheney's relatives off the land. Can she unearth the group's sudden interest in the plantation before it's too late?

In San Francisco, Cheney-with the support of Shiloh-fights with the hospital staff of St. Francis for the fair treatment of their city's "undesirables." Then catastrophe strikes, and she discovers that none of her medical education has prepared her for such an overwhelming disaster. With so many severe injuries, who will help her?

Cheney and Dr. Walker Baird, her colleague from St. Francis Hospital in San Francisco, arrive in Hawaii to try to convince Shiloh Irons to return with them. Though Shiloh believes the Winslows might be his long-lost family, Cheney has discovered some disturbing facts about Bain Winslow and has traveled all this way to warn her friend. She and Walker set out to help Shiloh unravel the mysteries that seemingly surround the Winslows' determination to drive him from the island. But with a valuable fish compass and tapestry stolen, the only tangible clues to Shiloh's origins, will he ever learn his true identity?

Shiloh proposes to Cheney. Cheney's answer, however, can only be a refusal. Shiloh is not a believer, and he grows bitter over her rejection. Cheney, meanwhile, is devastated that she has allowed herself to fall so fully in love with him. The two are "wavering, driven with the wind." When they arrive in New York, the couple discovers that close friends are having second thoughts about their own marriage. Like Cheney and Shiloh, they struggle to solve their problems. A revengeful plan that could ruin Cheney's reputation and medical practice is the final trial that draws them into the arms of the Lord.