Between earth and sky

de Karen Osborn

Abigail and her family have left the post-Civil War South and joined the mass immigration west in search of land and a more prosperous future. After the long and dangerous journey from Virginia to New Mexico in a covered wagon, they arrive, only to face far greater hardships: the ever-present danger of Indians, the constant search for food and basic necessities, and the loneliness and desolation of living on the plains. Abigail's remarkable story is told in Between Earth and Sky, an epistolary novel that vividly illustrates the strange, dangerous, and magical land of New Mexico. For more than sixty years - from 1867 to 1930 - Abigail writes to her beloved sister about her three children, her family's struggle to live among the Mexicans and Indians, and their efforts to create a farm in the desert. Her fears and apprehension are gradually replaced by awe for the dramatically different landscape of the Southwest, which she sketches and paints with growing enthusiasm for both the art and the subject. Abby Reynolds, Abigail Conklin's great-great-granddaughter, introduces the letters that comprise this compelling and moving pioneer story. Abby was too young to understand the significance of the letters when they were passed down to her. Now, years later and at a crossroads in her life, she begins reading the letters and their story of hardship and triumph. The letters inspire Abby to follow in her namesake's footsteps and leave behind her life in Virginia to pursue a new one in New Mexico. Abby finds a love for the land and people in this place between earth and sky just as Abigail did more than one hundred years earlier.