Rachel Lemoyne (Women of the West/Eileen Charbonneau) - Hardcover

Intense and exhausting ... a satisfying and absorbing read". -- Roanoke Times on Waltzing in Ragtime

"A lively historical novel spiked with steamy romance ... Charbonneau's mix of sexy romance and melodrama provides plenty of entertainment". -- Publishers Weekly on Waltzing in Ragtime

Rachel LeMoyne, a mixed-blood Choctaw raised in a Presbyterian mission, knows that her calling in 1850 is to travel to Ireland to feed the starving people there with her own people's life-giving surplus corn. But she never expected to find a husband among the hungry and grief stricken Irish. Especially a husband considered an outlaw by his English landlord, for daring to grind the corn that Rachel brought.

When Rachel and Darragh return to America as husband and wife, a new problem awaits them and they must flee to escape the authorities who are still searching for Darragh. But for the Irish, like the blacks and Indians, deemed "unfit for liberty", and with No Irish Need Apply laws in effect, the only place to run is west, to the wild country promised to anyone who can survive the journey there.

"Has an almost made-for-TV miniseries sheen to it, even as it grapples with large and complex social issues such as the birth of the environmental movement and the role of the post-Victorian American woman". -- Washington Post Book World on Waltzing in Ragtime