The Calling of Ella McFarland: The Women of Rock Creek - Book 1

By Linda Brooks Davis

It's 1905. Women's voices are silenced in public and stifled at home. The womans suffrage debate is raging. And hope for Oklahoma statehood is rising.

Amid the tumult, independent-spirited Ella McFarland reaches for her dream--teaching at Oklahoma Territory's Worthington School for Girls. But gossip surrounding her sister's unwed motherhood has reached the prestigious institution, and Ella fears she'll be limited to grueling work on her father's farm in Indian Territory. Her fate lies in the hands of the all-male school board. Might one kind-hearted panel member, the strikingly handsome Mr. Evans, help make her dream come true?

Awaiting the board's decision, Ella rescues an abused sharecropper's daughter and is forced to make decisions about her faith, family, and aspirations. With new love budding in her heart, what will it take for her to find God's will amid the storm surrounding her?

1st Place winner of the 2014 Jerry Jenkins Operation First Novel Award and the 2016 American Christian Fiction Writers Carol Award, The Calling of Ella McFarland explores one young woman's devotion to a serendipitous calling, the transformative effect of an unlikely friendship, and the healing power of love.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1949856046
• ISBN13: 9781949856040
• Release Date: December 2018
• Publisher: Brookstone Publishing Group
• Length: 340 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

A woman's place at the turn of the century

Ella is called to be a teacher, but is that her only calling? And in an era where getting married means an end to your teaching career, do you forsake your calling for love and family? These are the questions that Ella must grapple with during an era where "having it all" wasn't even a concept. You'll have to read to see how Ella figures it all out. I love the sense of timelessness in this novel - domestic violence and classism are things that we still deal with today. But other issues, like women's suffrage, mandatory education, and working outside the home with married are thankfully areas in which progress has made major changes. Ella's faith and her struggle to believe in times of adversity is SO real. I don't think anyone can honestly say they haven't dealt with that in their own life, too. Such a great story and now I have to read more by this author who was new to me.