Sandra Dallas Books In Order

Standalone Novels In Publication Order

  1. Buster Midnight’s Cafe (1990)
  2. The Persian Pickle Club (1995)
  3. Prayers for Sale (1997)
  4. The Diary of Mattie Spenser (1997)
  5. Alice’s Tulips (2000)
  6. The Chili Queen (2002)
  7. New Mercies (2005)
  8. Tallgrass (2007)
  9. Whiter Than Snow (2010)
  10. The Bride’s House (2011)
  11. The Quilt Walk (2012)
  12. True Sisters (2012)
  13. Fallen Women (2013)
  14. Red Berries, White Clouds, Blue Sky (2014)
  15. A Quilt for Christmas (2014)
  16. The Last Midwife (2015)
  17. Hardscrabble (2018)
  18. The Patchwork Bride (2018)
  19. Someplace to Call Home (2019)
  20. Westering Women (2020)
  21. Little Souls (2022)

Non-Fiction Books In Publication Order

  1. No More Than Five in a Bed (1962)
  2. Gaslights and Gingerbread (1965)
  3. Cherry Creek Gothic (1971)
  4. Yesterday’s Denver (1974)
  5. Sacred Paint (1979)
  6. Colorado Ghost Towns and Mining Camps (1985)
  7. Colorado Homes (1986)
  8. The Quilt That Walked to Golden (2004)

Anthologies In Publication Order

  1. The Spoilt Quilt and Other Frontier Stories (2019)

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Sandra Dallas Books Overview

Buster Midnight’s Cafe

May Anna Kovacks was discovered on the dustry streets of Butte, Montana and went on to become a Hollywood star. War, fame, marriage, love, and heartbreak came and went. What never changed was the bond she shared with her two best friends, Effa Commander and Whippy Bird. When scandal, murder, and betrayal made a legend of May Anna, only Effa and Whippy Bird could set the record straight.

The Persian Pickle Club

It is the 1930s, and hard times have hit Harveyville, Kansas, where the crops are burning up, and there’s not a job to be found. For Queenie Bean, a young farm wife, a highlight of each week is the gathering of The Persian Pickle Club, a group of local ladies dedicated to improving their minds, exchanging gossip, and putting their quilting skills to good use. When a new member of the club stirs up a dark secret, the women must band together to support and protect one another. In her magical, memorable novel, Sandra Dallas explores the ties that unite women through good times and bad.

Prayers for Sale

From the critically acclaimed author of Tallgrass comes a powerful novel about an unlikely friendship between two women and the secrets they ve kept in order to survive life in a rugged Colorado mining town. It’s 1936 and the Great Depression has taken its toll. Up in the high country of the snow covered Rocky Mountains, eighty six year old Hennie Comfort has lived in Middle Swan, Colorado, since before it was Colorado. When she first meets seventeen year old Nit Spindle, Hennie is drawn to the grieving young girl. Nit and her husband have come to this small mining town in search of work, but the loneliness and loss Nit feels are almost too much to bear. One day she notices an old sign that reads Prayers for Sale in front of Hennie s house. Hennie doesn t actually take money for her prayers, never has, but she invites the skinny girl in anyway. The harsh conditions of life that each has endured create an instant bond, and a friendship is born, one in which the deepest of hardships are shared and the darkest of secrets are confessed. Sandra Dallas has created an unforgettable tale of a friendship between two women, one with surprising twists and turns, and one that is ultimately a revelation of the finest parts of the human spirit.

The Diary of Mattie Spenser

No one is more surprised than Mattie Spenser herself when Luke Spenser, considered the great catch of their small Iowa town, asks her to marry him. Less than a month later, they are off in a covered wagon to build a home on the Colerado frontier. Mattie’s only company is a slightly mysterious husband and her private journal, where she records the joys and frustrations not just of frontier life, but also of a new marriage to a handsome but distant stranger. As she and Luke make life together on the harsh and beautiful plains, Mattie learns some bitter truths about her husband and the girl he lieft behind and finds love where she least expects it. Dramatic and suspenseful, this is an unforgettable story of hardship, friendship and survival.

Alice’s Tulips

‘Loyalty, trust and friendship are the themes of Dallas’s cozy, suspense driven epistolary novel, set during the Civil War…
. Alice is a feisty Northern counterpart to Scarlett O’Hara…
‘ Publishers Weekly Alice Bullock is a young newlywed whose husband, Charlie, has just joined the Union Army, leaving her on his Iowa farm with only his formidable mother for company. Equally talented at sewing and gossip, and not overly fond of hard work, Alice writes lively letters to her sister filled with accounts of local quilting bees, the rigors of farm life, and the customs of small town America. But no town is too small for intrigue and treachery, and when Alice finds herself accused of murder, she discovers her own hidden strengths and finds support from unlikely sources.

The Chili Queen

Life may have been hard on Addie French, but when she meets friendless Emma Roby on a train, all her protective instincts emerge. Emma’s brother is seeing her off to Nalgitas to marry a man she has never met. And Emma seems like a lost soul to Addie someone who needs Addie’s savvy and wary eye. It isn’t often that Addie is drawn to anyone as a friend, but Emma seems different somehow. When Emma’s prospective fails to show up at the train depot, Addie breaks all her principles to shelter the girl at her brothel, The Chili Queen. But once Emma enters Addie’s life, the secrets that unfold and schemes that are hatched cause both women to question everything they thought they knew. With Sandra Dallas’s trademark humor, charm, and pathos, The Chili Queen will satisfy anyone who has ever longed for happiness.

New Mercies

Natchez, Mississippi, in 1933 is a place suspended in time. The silver and china is still dented and cracked from Yankee invaders. And the houses have names…
and memories. Nora Bondurant is running away from her husband’s death, from his secrets, and from the ghosts that dog her every step. When she receives a telegram informing her that she has an inheritance, Nora suddenly has somewhere to run to: a house named Avoca in Natchez, Mississippi. Now, she’s learning that the lure of Natchez runs deep, and that, along with Avoca, she’s inherited a mystery. Nora’s aunt Amalia Bondurant was killed in a murder/suicide, and the locals are saying nothing more except in hushed, honeyed tones. As Nora becomes more and more enmeshed in the community and in her family’s history, she learns surprising things about the life and death of her aunt: kinship isn’t always what it seems, loyalty can be as fierce as blood relations, and every day we are given New Mercies to heal the pain of loss and love.

Tallgrass

An essential American novel from Sandra Dallas, an unparalleled writer of our history, and our deepest emotions…
During World War II, a family finds life turned upside down when the government opens a Japanese internment camp in their small Colorado town. After a young girl is murdered, all eyes and suspicions turn to the newcomers, the interlopers, the strangers. This is Tallgrass as Rennie Stroud has never seen it before. She has just turned thirteen and, until this time, life has pretty much been what her father told her it should be: predictable and fair. But now the winds of change are coming and, with them, a shift in her perspective. And Rennie will discover secrets that can destroy even the most sacred things. Part thriller, part historical novel, Tallgrass is a riveting exploration of the darkest and best parts of the human heart.

Whiter Than Snow

From The New York Times bestselling author of Prayers for Sale comes the moving and powerful story of a small town after a devastating avalanche, and the life changing effects it has on the people who live there Whiter Than Snow opens in 1920, on a spring afternoon in Swandyke, a small town near Colorado’s Tenmile Range. Just moments after four o clock, a large split of snow separates from Jubilee Mountain high above the tiny hamlet and hurtles down the rocky slope, enveloping everything in its path including nine young children who are walking home from school. But only four children survive. Whiter Than Snow takes you into the lives of each of these families: There s Lucy and Dolly Patch two sisters, long estranged by a shocking betrayal. Joe Cobb, Swandyke s only black resident, whose love for his daughter Jane forces him to flee Alabama. There s Grace Foote, who hides secrets and scandal that belies her genteel fa ade. And Minder Evans, a civil war veteran who considers his cowardice his greatest sin. Finally, there s Essie Snowball, born Esther Schnable to conservative Jewish parents, but who now works as a prostitute and hides her child s parentage from all the world. Ultimately, each story serves as an allegory to the greater theme of the novel by echoing that fate, chance, and perhaps even divine providence, are all woven into the fabric of everyday life. And it s through each character s defining moment in his or her past that the reader understands how each child has become its parent s purpose for living. In the end, it s a novel of forgiveness, redemption, survival, faith and family.

The Bride’s House

From the New York Times bestselling author of Whiter Than Snow and Prayers for Sale comes a novel about the secrets and passions of three generations of women who have all lived in the same Victorian home called The Bride’s House. It s 1880, and for unassuming seventeen year old Nealie Bent, the Bride s House is a fairy tale come to life. It seems as if it is being built precisely for her and Will Spaulding, the man she is convinced she will marry. But life doesn t go according to plan, and Nealie finds herself in the Bride s House pregnant and married to another. For Pearl, growing up in the Bride s House is akin to being raised in a mausoleum. Her father has fashioned the house into a shrine to the woman he loved, resisting all forms of change. When the enterprising young Frank Curry comes along and asks for Pearl s hand in marriage, her father sabotages the union. But he underestimates the lengths to which the women in the Bride s House will go for love. Susan is the latest in the line of strong and willful women in the Bride s House. She s proud of the women who came before her, but the Bride s House hides secrets that will force her to question what she wants and who she loves. Sandra Dallas has once again written a novel rich in storytelling and history, peopled by living, breathing characters that will grab hold of you and not let you go.

The Quilt That Walked to Golden

Inspiration drawn from letters, journals, historical sources, and-essential vehicles of women’s storytelling through the years-quilts fills this narrative re-creation of the history of the West from the time of the early pioneers to the present day. The purpose of quilts and the art of quilting provide a window into the lives of these women, their friendships, and their sorrows. Quilts provided warmth and occasionally served as death shrouds during the gold rush years. They were nailed to the walls and floors of rough-hewn cabins of shanty mining settlements. Quilting bees provided a rare opportunity for female fellowship at the turn of the century. The voice of a masterful storyteller brings to life the heroic and heartbreaking stories of generations of women in this sensitive and artistic portrait.

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