Boston Jane: An Adventure (Boston Jane Series #1)

by Jennifer L. Holm Narrated by Jessalyn Gilsig

Overview

Fresh from Miss Hepplewhite's Young Ladies' Academy, sixteen-year-old Jane Peck has come to the unknown wilds of the Northwest to be wedded to her true love, William Baldt, her idol from childhood. But her socially correct upbringing in straitlaced Philadelphia is hardly preparation for the colorful characters and crude life that await her in Shoal Water Bay in the Washington Territory. Thrown upon her wits in the wild, Jane learns not only to cope, but to thrive-and to discover for herself whether she is truly proper Miss Jane Peck of Philadelphia, faultless young lady and fiancée, or Boston Jane, as the Chinook dub her, fearless and loyal woman of the frontier.

Drawn from historical material of the region, Boston Jane is a rich potpourri of adventure, humor, romance, and suspense, featuring a dashing new heroine who will win readers' hearts as she discovers the true desires of her own.

Editorial Reviews

Kirkus Reviews

In the third installment of her trilogy about Boston Jane, Holm continues the drama of white settlers in the Washington Territory, some of whom embrace the Chinook way of life and many of whom disdain their so-called "savage" ways. This familiar conflict rears its ugly head when a child of a Chinook Indian mother and a white father who has died, is taken away from the mother to be raised by a white family. Additional aspects of settlement life include the coming of a dry-goods store, first elections, and fraudulent land schemes. Jane, who had uprooted herself from Philadelphia and found friendship and promise in this rough new community, now faces a new threat, not the physical danger of murderers and the frontier, but the supercilious and disdainful ways of Sally Biddle, her old Philadelphia nemesis. She is less successful in overcoming the proper Ms. Biddle and, in fact, needs the familiar plot device of a letter left lying about to achieve victory. That victory is a proposal of marriage from the handsome Jehu. While this is not as compelling as the previous two titles, Jane's fans will delight in the turn of events and celebrate with her. (Fiction. 10-14)

Washington Parent

The fascinating details and humor herein are sure to hit home with fans of historical fiction.

ALA Booklist (starred review)

A first-rate story not to be missed.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169175493
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	01/26/2010
Series:	Boston Jane Series , #1
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	8 - 11 Years

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

or,
The Luckiest Girl

It was a sweet September day on the beach, much like the day I'd first sailed into Shoalwater Bay that April. The sun was skipping across the water, and the sky was a bright arc of blue racing to impossibly tall green trees. And for the first time since arriving on this wild stretch of wilderness, I felt lucky again.

You see, I had survived these many months in the company of rough men and Chinook Indians, not to mention a flea-ridden hound, and while it was true that my wardrobe had suffered greatly, one might say that my person had thrived. I had made friends. I had started an oyster business. I had survived endless calamity: six months of seasickness on the voyage from Philadelphia, a near-drowning, a fall from a cliff, and a smallpox outbreak. What was there to stop me now? Although a life on the rugged frontier of the Washington Territory was not recommended for a proper young lady of sixteen, especially in the absence of a suitable chaperone, I intended to try it.

After all, I did make the best pies on Shoalwater Bay. And striding up the beach toward me was a man who appreciated them.

"Jane!"

He had the bluest eyes I had ever seen, bluer than the water of the bay behind him. A schooner, The Hetty, was anchored not far out, and it was the reason I had packed all my belongings and was standing beside my trunk. The same schooner had brought Jehu Scudder back to the bay after a prolonged absence. Indeed, when Jehu left, I had doubted that I would ever see him again.

"Jane," Jehu said gruffly, his thick black hair brushing his shoulders, his eyes glowing in his tannedface. I had last seen him nearly two months ago, at which time I had hurt his feelings, and sailor that he was, he had vowed to sail as far away as China to be rid of me.

"Jehu," I replied, nervously pushing a sticky tangle of red curls off my cheeks.

He shook his head. "You're looking well, Miss Peck."

"As are you, Mr. Scudder," I replied, my voice light.

We stood there for a moment just looking at each other, the soft bay air brushing between us like a ribbon. Without thinking, I took a step forward, toward him, until I was so close that I breathed the scent of the saltwater on his skin. And all at once I remembered that night, those stars, his cheek close to mine.

"Boston Jane! Boston Jane!" a small voice behind me cried.

Sootie, a Chinook girl who had become dear to me, came rushing down the beach, little legs pumping, her feet wet from the tide pool in which she had been playing. She was waving a particularly large clamshell at me, of the sort the Chinook children often fashioned into dolls.

"Look what I found!" she said, eyeing Jehu.

"Sootie," I said, smoothing back her thick black hair. "You remember Captain Scudder? He was the first mate on the Lady Luck, the ship that brought me here from Philadelphia."

Sootie clutched the skirts of my blue calico dress and hid behind them shyly, peeking out at Jehu with her bright brown eyes. Her mother, my friend Suis, had died in the summer smallpox outbreak, and since then Sootie had spent a great deal of time in my company.

Jehu crouched down next to her, admiring her find. "That's a real nice shell you have there."

She grinned flirtatiously at him, exposing a gap where one of her new front teeth was coming in.

Jehu grinned right back and squinted up at me from where he knelt. "I see you took my advice about wearing blue. Although I did like that Chinook skirt of yours," he teased, his Boston accent dry as a burr.

The cedar bark skirt in question, while very comfortable, had left my legs quite bare. "That skirt was hardly proper, Jehu," I rebuked him gently.

At this, his lips tightened and a shuttered look came across his face. The thick angry scar on his cheek twitched in a familiar way. He hunched his shoulders forward and stood up, deliberately looking somewhere over my shoulder. "Ah, yes, proper."

I bit my lip and stepped back. I had little doubt as to what was causing this sudden transformation. I had rejected his affections, as I had been engaged to another man.

"So tell me, how is your new husband?" he asked in a clipped voice.

"Jehu," I said quickly.

He turned from me and stared angrily out at the smooth bay. "If you'll excuse me, I've got supplies to deliver," he said tersely, and then he turned on his booted heel and strode quickly down the beach away from me.

I took a step forward, Sootie's arms tight around my legs. What was I to do? Miss Hepplewhite, my instructor at the Young Ladies Academy in Philadelphia, had a great number of opinions on the proper behavior of a young lady. I had discovered, however, that many of her careful instructions were sorely lacking when it came to surviving on the frontier. There was not much call for pouring tea or embroidering handkerchiefs in the wilds of Shoalwater Bay. And I certainly didn’t recall any helpful hints on how to prevent the only man one had ever kissed from storming away for the second time in one’s life. So I did something that I was sure would have shocked my old teacher.

I shouted.

"I didn’t marry him!"

He froze and then turned back toward me, walking fast. He grabbed my shoulders and looked down into my eyes.

"You didn't?" Something indefinable flickered across his face.

"It seems that Mr. Baldt already had a wife."

Jehu slapped his thigh triumphantly. "I knew he was no good!"

Boston Jane: Wilderness Days. Copyright © by Jennifer Holm. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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