Breakaway Books

Authored by Nancy Turner; Published 1998; Historical Fiction

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 🏖️🏖️🏖️🏖️🏖️

These is My Words is a significant departure from the novels that I normally read. It doesn’t have one big climax that the entire book is leading up to; instead, it’s a series of mountains and valleys throughout the narrator’s life, a telling that hews much closer to what life really is.

It tells the story of a woman, Sarah, making her way in the territories (now Arizona)—growing up, educating herself, getting married, and having children. The language is plain, but it paints the picture of a woman who we could all aspire to be more like. She is feisty; she perseveres; she is compassionate; most of all, she wants to be better.

I’m kind of a beginner when it comes to historical fiction: I’m much more likely to pick up fantasy, romance or a mystery. But this one drew me in, journal entry after journal entry. In spite of the centuries between us, Sarah was easy to relate to, even if her life wasn’t. I’ll never have to long for an education not available to me. I won’t be riding a wagon across dangerous territory threatened by bandits.

It made the book a wonderful escape. (Periodically, I would put it down and thank my lucky stars that I never lived in a time without indoor plumbing.) I grew to admire Sarah over the space of these two decades of her life, at the no-nonsense way she picks herself up after every tragedy that strikes her, and keeps on doing what she can.

More than anything else, this book was a reminder of how extraordinary seemingly ordinary people can be. I loved it for that, and I think you will too.