Customer Reviews

These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901 Arizona Territories

5 star:		(287)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

These Is My Words begins with Sarah Prine's family pulling up stakes and traveling toward a new home in the early 1880s. Deciding to record the events of her life in a diary, Sarah takes us step-by-step through the real tragedies of life on a frontier but also through the triumphs that make life bearable. Sarah is a tough young woman who is a sharpshooter, both with a rifle and her spirit. Young and impressionable, she finds out that people and events are not always what they seem and she makes plenty of mistakes along the way. The love story between she and Captain Jack Elliott is one of the best I've ever read; you can feel the love between the two jump off the page and grab you around your own heart. Finding a stopping place in this wonderful book is next to impossible and to say that your soul will become involved is to state the obvious. Sarah and her stories will live a very long time within me. This is historical fiction at its absolute best. Highly, highly recommended.

This is a book that I would never have picked out on my own but I'm so thankful that it was recommended to me by a poster on one of the book boards. Just the cover alone makes the purchase worthwhile. I especially liked the way Nancy Turner wrote this book in the form of a diary which is written over the course of 20 years. The two main characters, Sarah Prine and Captain Jack Elliott, are larger than life. She's smart, great with a gun and stubborn. He's ornery, romantic and loves her more than life itself. What a match and what a book. I recently recommended this to my book group and they've been raving about it ever since. My only disappointment is that I had to finish it.

I work casual hours in a bookstore and my manager picked up These Is My Words to let me know that it was on the New Releases list. The title had me at once. I bought it immediately.

Never have I felt so as one with a novel. Reading Sarah's entries, I too fought those Indians, felt the hurt with the loss of loved ones and loved Jack. On more than one occaison, I found myself in the most absurd places reading this story, (one morning for an hour sitting on the edge of the bath tub). I have been waiting for a book like this my whole life and now that I have found it, I doubt anything can replace it.

Nancy Turner's characters are vivid, believable, real. They grow through the course of the novel to become your friends, family and loved ones. I have never cried, laughed and siged with relief so many times through one book. I just hope that this treasure stays safe within yellowing pages and bypasses the big screen.

Truly amazing, an adventure everyone should have. Thank-you so much Nancy Turner!

Like many other reviewers, I read this book in a few sittings, staying up until the wee hours of the morning, and neglecting my husband and kids (except for reading parts to my 7-yr. old daughter), because I was so involved in Sarah's life. I read it on the treadmill, in the car, making dinner, at work...just couldn't put it down. I love how the story starts, with Sarah's "quaintly uneducated" narrative, watching her prose progress to the likes of a great teacher. I loved all the main characters, especially Jack, Sarah, and Savannah and feel as though I've learned much about life from them. Pioneer women are truly heroes, and I want to know more about them and their incredible experiences.

My eyes have red rings around them today as I totally lost it at the end. I had water coming from every hole in my head and snuck to the bathroom before my husband could see me and make fun of me. I've even begun to cry numerous times just reading these reviews. Jack wasn't perfect but his love and devotion to Sarah and the kids was amazing. I hated the irony of what finally happened to him and was hoping he would stay. The romantic parts of the book were tastefully done, yet I couldn't get enough of those either. I just didn't want it all to end and will reread it immediately, savoring it this time and picking up things I missed before.

Ms. Turner: Thank you for such a riveting work. Please do a sequel! I kept thinking and hoping that Sarah would end up a Professor of Latin at the new University in Tucson. (It was also baffling to me that Sarah didn't explode in anger that her husband opened her test grade, presenting the paper to her as a gift, for her birthday) She's only what, 38 when the story ends, so there's so much left for her to do and share about herself and family! Sam Elliott and Sissy Spacek would have been good for the movie 20 years ago. Now, it's questionable who could carry these characters, but please bring this story to life! Movies are NEVER as good as the books they portray, but bringing this beautiful story to the big screen, even if the movie's not altogether worthy, would be better than nothing at all!

As I read other customer's reviews, I agree that Sarah is an attractive heroine--we can't help but be drawn to her character. Yet for me the highlight of the novel is the character of Captain Jack Elliot. I found my heart beating so fast each time he was mentioned in one of Sarah's journal entries, just as if I had fallen in love with him myself! Comparisons of Jack and Sarah to Rhett and Scarlett are very shallow; this pair beats the Gone With the Wind couple hands down! Oh where are the Jack Elliot's of our day? If only we had more men like him, men whose love is pure and selfless, who love their mates with everything that is within them, and then some! Nancy Turner, you have swept me away with your beautiful protrayal of Jack and Sarah. Thanks for such a thrilling, all-consuming novel, and for the opportunity to "live" the lives of these characters and times which are, just like the civil war days, gone with the wind.

Your book has helped me to appreciate the part of the world I live in, and to see it with new eyes. I had the opportunity to fly over Cienega Creek in a small private airplane just a few days ago, and it was thrilling, to say the least, to look down upon the area where Sarah and Jack and their family lived out (fictionally) their eventful, full lives. For those of you who have not read this book, don't wait any longer to pick it up! You will absolutely love it!

Sarah Agnes Prine, the heroine of Nancy E Turner's first novel, "These Is My Words", is a strong -- and strong-minded -- young woman. Raised with a passel of brothers, she learned to hunt, ride bareback, and "shoot a tick off a dog's back" at an early age. Written journal style, the story chronicles Sarah's life in the Arizona Territory from 1881 to 1901. It details encounters with Indians and outlaws, immigrants and soldiers, especially one particular Army captain whose path seems to cross hers frequently. Sarah's journal records births and deaths, many violent, and some by her own hand. It tells of her first, loveless marriage, and following her husband's untimely death, her second marriage to Captain Jack Elliot. "I love him with all the love I have ever had," she wrote. Sarah is a lusty, gutsy, surprising heroine with a healthy share of feminism for her time. The book, winner of the Arizona Author Award and finalist for the Willa Cather Literary award, offers an intriguing glimpse of southwestern history as lived by real people. A thoroughly absorbing and enjoyable read.

Mom, this is to thank you for introducing me to the "covered wagon days", for giving me _Jubilee Trail_ by Gwen Bristow, and introducing me to the life long interest and love for those women and men that pioneered the west.

There is no doubt that this book wins book of the year for me.

I wish I could urge everyone to read this novel, for it is one of the most entertaining books I have ever read. Nancy Turner has brought the Arizona Territory in the late 1800's alive, and the impression of it will literally be so vivid, you will feel as if you made a movie in your mind with the read.

As other reviewers have expressed, you cannot put this book down. I guarantee you will care deeply for the characters and their experiences will be unique to us in this time period. It is obvious extensive and accurate research went into her preparations. In many ways, this accuracy is what brings this book to life and transplants the reader into the very time period to make the story more of an experience than a simple novel read.

An accurate accounting of Sarah Prine, a young woman moving into the Arizona territories with her family, her life is revealed in a diary format, but richly endorsed with her marvelous gift for story telling, humor and feisty spirit. You can not help but unite behind all of her endeavors, loving those that love her and feeling equally betrayed and traumatized by those who do the same. This is a strong woman, and her experiences are intense. This is no fairy tale, it is an accounting of all the life experiences a young woman must face on her own in a new land constantly besieged by the lawless and coping with Indians fighting to retain their ancient lands for their own. Gripping accounts of attacks during their migration to the Territories are told along with the struggles the people had to maintain their families and cope with the incredible demands of the journey. Interestingly, disgust was levied at husbands who impregnated their wives prior to and on the trail. Military escorts were forced to make those ill and in labor travel, unable to afford the luxury of ceasing the migration due to indian threat and cold weather impeding their progress.

This is a powerful novel and I cherish the thought that women like Sarah lived, loved and founded homes in the great American West.

First, I want you to know that is not a typo! The title of the book is "These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine 1881-1901 Arizona Territories: A Novel" by Nancy E. Turner. I just finished reading this book which was published in 1998. I am sorry it took me so long to read it, but I have to say it is one of the best written, most interesting books I have read in a long, long time.

This book was Nancy E. Tuner's first novel and research shows me she has written more since, including a sequel to this book which I am going to have to get and read.

"These is My Words" is a fascinating historical novel. I felt like I was right there with Sarah Prine and her family and from what I know of the history of the time, the book is historically accurate. I came to know Sarah, Jack, Savannah, Albert, their children and others that came in and out of their lives. I was astounded to read the way they faced life and the hardships and kept going. Sometimes they were set back for a bit, but life goes forward and they showed that in fine fashion.

This was a novel about people who lived, loved, laughed, and cried. They overcame obstacles and took on tasks that today we would find daunting, but that they treated as common place events. I had a hard time going to sleep each night when I was reading the book, because I wanted to read just one more entry and find out what was in store for Sarah and those around her. I cannot say enough about what a fantastic book this is. You will enjoy it from beginning to end and you will be a little stronger in the end.

If you love reading the words of someone who has lived it, i.e. a diary or journal, you are going to love Sarah Agnes Prine's journal. The twenty year span goes like lightning, and indeed, you won't want to put it down. Sarah's story from her adolescence to her widowhood make for great adventure, almost unbelievable, in fact.

This is a rich story of a very strong woman, one who can do it all, both because she has to, and because she can. Sarah is a survivor, to say the least, and the spirited type of pioneer woman who forged the wilds of the West, specifically the Arizona Territories, in the late 1800's, facing life-threatening attacks from Indians, banditos, and evil outlaw thugs, as well as the worst that Mother Nature could deliver.

This is a novel, but seems quite real, and Sarah and her romance with Jack Elliott fill the pages with hope and a love of life. Sarah's family and their ventures to settle the untamed territories, involve hard work, hard times, making the best of whatever befalls, and epitomize what people can accomplish with united determination.

Nancy Turner certainly captures the West in vivid detail and makes one feel, that even a full century later, she has lived there for a while. Turner's first novel is a wonder. This book should be read and passed on, as its story and characters will certainly be kept in the mind of the reader for a long, long time.

This is a truly wonderful book that I have read at least 5 times. It's has eveything...The characters all come to life and you feel like they are family. I was so sad at the end with what happens to Jack( I have cried evey time I read the book )but I was even more unhappy that I don't know what happened to Sarah & her family for the rest of their lives. I loved the journal style of how it was written as you could really feel not only all of Sarah's thoughts and emotions but most of the people she knew. I just can't say enough good of how well this book was written. I've been trying to find a way to tell the author how greatful I am she shared this true to life story based on her own family. Just today I found another book she has written, while I am sad it's not a continuation of Sarah's story, it sounds like it will be rewarding as well.