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70th out of 220 books
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133 voters
The Star Garden (Sarah Agnes Prine #3)
From the bestselling author of These Is My Words comes this exhilarating follow-up to the beloved Sarah's Quilt. In the latest diary entries of pioneer woman Sarah Agnes Prine, Nancy E. Turner continues Sarah's extraordinary story as she struggles to make a home in the Arizona Territory.
It is winter 1906, and nearing bankruptcy after surviving drought, storms, and the rust...more
It is winter 1906, and nearing bankruptcy after surviving drought, storms, and the rust...more
Hardcover, 320 pages
Published
September 4th 2007
by Thomas Dunne Books
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I do not reward very many books with a 5-star rating. It has to be just that-amazing! That being said, one of my favorite books of all time is 'These Is My Words' despite the dumb title. The second book in the series, Sarah's Quilt, was good, but no comparison to the first. However, the third in the series is a contender to the first!
I didn't think it could be possible for me to give up my unique and sole-devotion to one Jack Elliot, but in The Star Garden I was able to make room to love one mor...more
I didn't think it could be possible for me to give up my unique and sole-devotion to one Jack Elliot, but in The Star Garden I was able to make room to love one mor...more
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I'm going to try not to gush here. The Star Garden is the third book Nancy Turner has written about Sarah Agnes Prine, basing the character on her own great grandmother. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that Sarah is almost my very favorite heroine ever. Of course, I will always love Elizabeth Bennett and Ann Elliot, among others. But Sarah sure is up there. Now, neither this book nor its predecessor, Sarah's Quilt, were as wonderful as These Is My Words, the first Sarah book. But I lov...more
2 likes · like · see review
Jul 29, 2008
Karen
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
red hat women and those who enjoy historical fiction/pioneering stories
"I wish I knew a word for that kind of righteous ache that weighs down my insides when I do what I know is the right thing to do, though it goes against all my normal leanings." pg. 28 "I tried to remember what Udell had said, about how going toward the future was better than just leaving the past behind." pg. 82 "I think grandchildren are the best part of being a mother. Twice the fun and half the worry." pg. 105 I listened to "These is My Words" on tape and was sorely disappointed when the act...more
This is the third and final book in the Sarah Agnes Prine trilogy (These Is My Words, Sarah's Quilt). I feel like Nancy Turner redeemed herself with this book. I did not care much for Sarah's Quilt, and I think you could skip right over it and go from These Is my Words to this one. I felt like the former, gritty Sarah was back in this installment. Too many disasters and hardships befell her in Sarah's Quilt--to the point where it bordered on ridiculous. This novel, however, was more realistic, a...more
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Oct 12, 2007
Miriam
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
women, frontier history buffs, or those in the mood for a great love story
This is the long-awaited third (and possibly final) installment in the series of books that includes These Is My Words and Sarah's Quilt. All three books have Sarah Agnes Prine as their central character, and Sarah was the great-grandmother of the author, Nancy Turner, who was an early settler of the Arizona Territory. It is unclear how much of the books are pure fabrication, and how much is based on true-life experiences of Turner's great-grandmother (certainly real historical events are part o...more
Couldn't read this one fast enough. The journal format pulls me through the story and told first person makes it so much more real and compelling. Takes me back to how I felt in 2nd grade when I discovered "The Little House" series. Opened up a different world and a different life from a whole new perspective.
I think I became enmeshed with the whole Prine family, reading these 3 novels. I cried buckets with each of them...by the second book my childrend stopped asking what was wrong and my husband just looked at me and shook his head. I really liked the main character, Sarah Agnes Prine, and identified with her in many ways. I think the first book in this series, These is My Words, remains my favorite, but I surely did want to know what happened to everyone. These novels make you glad to be alive in...more
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This book, the third in the series about Sarah Agnes Prine, was wonderful. This series of three books are among my very favorite works of modern fiction. I checked these out of the library, but these I will actually buy for my collection of "favorites" at home.
I absolutely love the character of Sarah Agnes Prine: her strength, her vulnerability, and her practicality. The stories of her experiences on the Southwestern frontier are unbelievable, and I loved the mental images I got of the "star gar...more
I absolutely love the character of Sarah Agnes Prine: her strength, her vulnerability, and her practicality. The stories of her experiences on the Southwestern frontier are unbelievable, and I loved the mental images I got of the "star gar...more
I really enjoyed this book. I have loved the series. Of course, my favorite is the first book written "These is My Words". In this book,it took me a little while to become refamiliar with the characters because it's been awhile since I read "Sarah's Quilt". But once I did, I fell in love all over again with the Prine family, and the ever-strong and faithful family matriach - Sarah. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who has read the first two. I just finished reading the last chapt...more
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This book by Nancy E. Turner is the third in the series that started with These Is My Words. This one is almost as good as the first, and both are real page-turners. Sarah Agnes Prine could have been my own great-great-grandmothers, who lived and loved and died in the same part of Southern Arizona. I felt like I was reading my own family history.
Sarah lives outside of Tucson. Someone killed and rustled all her cattle, and she is struggling to take care of her family. A widow, Sarah is out hunti...more
Sarah lives outside of Tucson. Someone killed and rustled all her cattle, and she is struggling to take care of her family. A widow, Sarah is out hunti...more
This series was like the Outlander series in that I LOVED the first book, the second one, not so much, then the third was great once again. That is where the similarity ends.
After reading Sarah's Quilt, which, I thought, contained far too many words, too many hardships in a short time, and was not credible as a journal(who, in that day and age, would have had time to write a journal that detailed in longhand, and still have time to sleep?)I had decided not to bother reading the third book in th...more
After reading Sarah's Quilt, which, I thought, contained far too many words, too many hardships in a short time, and was not credible as a journal(who, in that day and age, would have had time to write a journal that detailed in longhand, and still have time to sleep?)I had decided not to bother reading the third book in th...more
The Star Garden, 3rd of the Sarah Agnes Prine series, is set in the Arizona Territory in December 1906. Sarah's diary entries chronicle a rough and tragic way of life that is hard to comprehend in the modern day. Family ties are solid and enduring, fast friendships survive all challenges, love triumphs (mostly). It does strain credulity that all the strife could occur to one person...
When the story begins, Sarah has survived evil attacks by neighbor Rudolfo Maldonado that have brought her ranch...more
When the story begins, Sarah has survived evil attacks by neighbor Rudolfo Maldonado that have brought her ranch...more
I am loving this book:
It is winter 1906, and nearing bankruptcy after surviving drought, storms, and the rustling of her cattle, Sarah remains a stalwart pillar to her extended family. Then a stagecoach accident puts in her path three strangers who will change her life.
In sickness and in health, neighbor Udell Hanna remains a trusted friend, pressing for Sarah to marry. When he reveals a plan to grant Sarah her dearest wish, she is overwhelmed with passion and excitement. She soon discovers, how...more
It is winter 1906, and nearing bankruptcy after surviving drought, storms, and the rustling of her cattle, Sarah remains a stalwart pillar to her extended family. Then a stagecoach accident puts in her path three strangers who will change her life.
In sickness and in health, neighbor Udell Hanna remains a trusted friend, pressing for Sarah to marry. When he reveals a plan to grant Sarah her dearest wish, she is overwhelmed with passion and excitement. She soon discovers, how...more
The Star Garden is the third installment of the series that started with These is My Words, and I hope it is not the last. I read all three books so quickly it has been hard to beak them apart and create separate reviews. These books are wonderful, some of the best I've ever read. I believe Nancy E. Turner could write a book about watching grass grow and I would love it, she is just that good. The characters are amazing, the setting is vivid (very), the action is white-knuckles-gripping-the-chai...more
"I failed apron" what a great line.
Loved the cast of characters in this series except for Maldonado and Elsa. I felt the author missed an opportunity to use these characters as a way to show the rich culture and history of the Latino people. Instead she used them as the bad guys. Moldonado was unrealistically bad and Elsa was just not loved by the author.
Why is stubborn foolishness such a prized trait for strong feminist women? Wish it was wisdom. I would think more highly of the character.
It's...more
Loved the cast of characters in this series except for Maldonado and Elsa. I felt the author missed an opportunity to use these characters as a way to show the rich culture and history of the Latino people. Instead she used them as the bad guys. Moldonado was unrealistically bad and Elsa was just not loved by the author.
Why is stubborn foolishness such a prized trait for strong feminist women? Wish it was wisdom. I would think more highly of the character.
It's...more
I was going to just stop at the first one, These Is My Words, but I loved that book so much I wondered what happened to Sarah Prine after the first. I skimmed the second. Stupid I know, but I feared nothing good happened to her at that time in her life and so I skipped to the happier times. I wouldn't recommend it. There was definitely a disconnect that I regretted. No book will ever be as good as These Is My Words, but the final book to the series was wonderful. I don't know what it is about th...more
So sad this series is over. I love these type of books... turn of the century, strong women, struggles to survive. At some points you do have to wonder how much one person can possibly go through and yes, it does seem a bit much at times. The Star Garden is the third book in the series after These Is My Words and Sarah's Quilt and is definitely my favorite (maybe because I knew it was ending?) Sarah struggles with facing old age (she's 42!) and if she wants to face love again. She struggles to k...more
I wonder if I could go back in time and have Sarah Prine Elliott adopt me. Maybe I would be Mary Pearl, the niece that's a bit too feisty for her times. I'm not sure I'd be feisty or strong enough to be Sarah herself.
The Star Garden is the third of this series, a welcome respite from the dark, dreary year chronicled in Sarah's Quilt. I realize that the life of a frontier woman was difficult at best, but the hardships visited upon the Prine family that year were almost too much to bear. The Star...more
The Star Garden is the third of this series, a welcome respite from the dark, dreary year chronicled in Sarah's Quilt. I realize that the life of a frontier woman was difficult at best, but the hardships visited upon the Prine family that year were almost too much to bear. The Star...more
I read the whole trilogy in about a week. While I still found the story line interesting and was glad to follow the characters, the style of this book frustrated me. It no longer felt like I was reading journal entries, but a book in a trilogy. It was written to the reader, not as a personal account, with too much back tracking. It may be because I had just read the others. There were instances where she would refer back to earlier incidents and describe people as my husband, Jack, who I met whe...more
Nancy Turner has created another historical novel in diary format to complete the Sarah Agnes Prine series. Much more reflective than either These Is My Words or Sarah's Quilt: A Novel of Sarah Agnes Prine and the Arizona Territories, 1906 this novel highlights the wisdom Sarah has accumulated through 43 years of loss and hard living, much of it as a rancher in the Arizona Territories. The essay that earns her a Pass, in her English class at university condenses all she has learned to value in a...more
Loved it! Amazing climax at the end, and some unexpected turns throughout the story. (But I didn't read the book summary either.) My favorite quote from the book is when she is grieving for a lost neice and says, "I got on Baldy [her horse], pulled my hat low, and rode to the gate. I left it open for my return, and headed south, toward the far windmill I'd had so much trouble with last year. Now it was someone else's problem. To Chess, Texas still seemed a long way from all of it. [Meaning their...more
This book was definitely better than Sarah's Quilt. I didn't have the same intensity and excitement of the first, but it was still enjoyable. I think the author had some difficulty balancing tension with action. The main storyline involved a lot of building up, a lot of details that I didn't totally feel clear about, then a seeming resolution that confused me more than anything, then the problem was actually still there, then action and the end. Plus I had mixed feelings about the villain in the...more
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This is the last book in Nancy Turner's splendid trilogy about Sarah Agnes Prine. I disagree with the few reviews I've read where readers thought less of the second book in the series. Each book was excellent, and I didn't find any of them less than the first one. The story progresses through each book, through Sarah's life and the events of that time and her family. Fascinating.
It's hard to tell someone else what's so good about these books. They are just phenomenal in some quiet way. There's...more
It's hard to tell someone else what's so good about these books. They are just phenomenal in some quiet way. There's...more
I enjoyed this third installment based on the life of Sarah Prine better than the second (Sarah's Quilt), but not nearly as much as the first (These Is My Words), which still remains on my top ten list. Though I felt that there was a resolution to the trilogy I still felt somewhat unsettled about a number of the author's plot decisions.
In this, the third and last installment of the Sarah Agnes Prine story I find that Nancy E. Turner has our done herself and has further convinced me that she is among the best of the best. I just have to say that for me...the is series is as good as it gets when combining what family life was about in the Arizona Territories in the late 1800s to the early 1900s. Fighting Indians, famine, foul weather, progress, deceitfully evil neighbors and fighting the hardest fight of all...keeping the family...more
This series by Nancy Turner is FANTASTIC! You have to start with "These Is My Words," then "Sarah's Quilt," and finally finish her story with "The Star Garden!" They tell the story of a family homesteading in Arizona Territory from 1881 to 1907. These books were so engrossing that I not only cried in all of them and laughed out loud, I also responded with some "Oh no he didn't!" moments. It isn't a perfect fairy tale, husbands and babies and friends die, neighbors betray trust and even the best...more
Another good story, but I'm always really impressed when I get to the end of a series and feel like every detail was covered, no loose threads left hanging; when it's obvious the author knew where the story was going to end as soon as they started the first word of the first book. This isn't the case with "The Star Garden." The Romeo and Juliet plot was very contrived and forced. While it definitely added to an exciting plot, it didn't flow from the 2nd book or even make sense from the love stor...more
I LOVED These Is My Words, I really liked Sarah's Quilt, and I just liked this final story in the series. This last book didn't strike the same chord with me as the other two. My admiration and respect for Sarah Prine kind of lessened, even though I still love her. Maybe it's because she was older, more weighed down, a little less strong willed and sure of herself. This book just contained too much violence over the whole railroad issue. I would have loved to read more about her going to college...more
I had such high hopes after reading all the reviews of this book. I really liked These Is My Words, and I actually liked the first part of Sarah's Quilt even better. But towards the end of that book--and most of this book--I felt like Turner was trying to just pack in as much dreadful occurrences as possible. By the end of the story, she'd focused so much on these events--many of which didn't really feel fleshed out ((view spoiler)...more
I really loved "These is my Words" and couldn't wait to read the sequels. "Sarah's Quilt" was almost as good as the first volume. "The Star Garden" had me frustrated though. I was invested in the characters and wanted to find out what would happen to them, but enough already with Sarah's indecision about marrying Udell!! I get that she was conflicted about it, but it just went back and forth entirely too many times. Also, although it is written in diary form, it reads more as a narrative, with s...more
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“A woman who dreams of a good home with a man who holds for her only a poor love is putting a $50 saddle on a $20 horse. She'd be far better off single than riding with him.”
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5 people liked it
“Reckon women don't think like men." "Why on earth don't they learn how?" I rubbed my face. "Ain't meant to, honey." I smiled and kissed his brow. "It occurs to us to ask the same thing. Keeps the world turning, I suspect.”
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