Crossing the Wide Forever

Cody Walsh leaves Arkansas for California. Lured by stories of opportunity, even for women, Cody prepares for the arduous journey. Independence, Missouri, is the gateway to the West, but Cody discovers when she arrives that there is much about life she doesn't know.

Lillie Ellis accepts a post as a schoolteacher on the frontier near a small homestead she just inherited from her uncle. She hopes the Kansas frontier will offer her the freedom to follow her dream of being a painter. In the nineteenth-century, a young woman has few options in the East that don't revolve around marriage and motherhood. Lillie is interested in neither.

Cody's and Lillie's destinies and desires become entwined as they face the perils of the untamed West. Despite their differences, they discover that love's uncharted frontier is not for the weak in spirit or the faint of heart.