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    These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901
    These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901
    These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901
    Audiobook13 hours

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

    Written by Nancy E. Turner

    Narrated by Amy Rubinate

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    A moving, exciting, and heartfelt American saga inspired by the author's own family memoirs, these words belong to Sarah Prine, a woman of spirit and fire who forges a full and remarkable existence in a harsh, unfamiliar frontier. Scrupulously recording her steps down the path Providence has set her upon-from child to determined young adult to loving mother-she shares the turbulent events, both joyous and tragic, that molded her, and recalls the enduring love with cavalry officer Captain Jack Elliot that gave her strength and purpose.

    Rich in authentic everyday details and alive with truly unforgettable characters, These Is My Words brilliantly brings a vanished world to breathtaking life again.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateNov 18, 2014
    ISBN9781494575960
    These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901
    Author

    Nancy E. Turner

    Nancy E. Turner's first novel, These Is My Words, was the winner of the Arizona Author Award, and a finalist for the 1999 Willa Gather Award. Turner lives in Tucson, Arizona, with her family.

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    Reviews for These Is My Words

    4.5/5

    626 ratings60 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      I listened to the audio of this book. It is a family's memoir of Sarah Prine, a woman who survived and prevailed in the Arizona Territory in the late 1800's. The reader was very good and captured the emotions of Sarah and the strength and physical endurance she needed to survive the hardships she faced. I enjoyed the relationship between Sarah and Jack Elliot, who she truly loved. The author did an incredible amount of research and it truly is a beautiful story that will stay with you a long time. I would highly recommend this book to those who like stories about the western frontier.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Simply outstanding! Such a beautiful story of life and lessons and sacrifice and love. Of failures and success... Listened to it and I could picture it all so clearly that I felt as if I were watching my favorite TV series.... All the feels.
      Loved this book a d have two book I want to read that are due back at library before I can start the sequel.... Ugh.... So impatient.
    • 5/5
      An account of a woman's journey through the Arizona territories. Hands down one of my favorite books, ever.
    • 5/5
      Great book but the audio would cutoff before she finished the last few words of each chapter.
      Narrator 3 stars.
    • 4/5
      A saga of the Arizona territory, told by Sarah Plines Reed Elliot, covering 1881-1901. It's written as a journal/diary, and Turner has a gift for the language of the times, painting vivid pictures of the hard life the pioneers endured.
    • 3/5
      A bit too much romance for my taste, but well done, aside from that.
    • 4/5
      I loved this book. There was sad parts as well as humorous. A well told and gripping story of life and love in the 1800s. And it was all done with no profanity, imagine that!! This recording had issues, however. It seems the last word of each chapter gets cut off.
    • 5/5
      A book I didn't want to end. I am adding it to my list of great books.
    • 3/5
      What made this book difficult to listen to, is that almost the end of each chapter was not read. The story was good enough for me to keep listening to, so I filled in the missing parts with what I thought happened. I suggest you read it, not listen to it
    • 4/5
      I liked the book very much, but was disappointed in the production. The narrator had a breathy, lilting quality to her voice that was incredibly distracting and annoying. Also, the recording suddenly cut off the last word or syllable of each chapter. This ruined the flow of the listen.
    • 4/5
      Good premise for a Historical Novel of the American West. Based on the Author’s grandmother, the characters are well drawn and the plot well thought out. No real surprises, just a solid start to a Trilogy, which I’ll likely continue reading. Ending went on just a little bit too long, but overall, very enjoyable.
    • 4/5
      Wonderful, believable characters. Excellent portrait of pioneer life.
    • 5/5
      This is a book I didn’t want to end…..it was just wonderful and I both laughed and cried…..it was an absolute joy to read and it blew me away!
    • 3/5
      My interest petered out toward the end. Also, I know the narrator was supposed to be uneducated but a little consistency (I'm not even asking for correctness!) with use of lie & lay would have been nice. One last thing: there were almost NO hyphens in the whole book, and I missed them sorely.
    • 5/5
      Whoa. Just....whoa. I don't even know how to articulate what I'm feeling right now, having just finished this book. It's devastatingly gorgeous. Read it.
    • 5/5
      Reminiscent of the "Little House on the Prairie" books but suited more for adults. I could not put this book down! Can't wait to read the next two books in the series.
    • 4/5
      This book was inspired by some of the author's family memoirs and features Sarah Prine, a woman who lived in the Arizona Territory in the late 1800s. Sarah begins recording her life from the time she was a young girl in 1881 until about 1901. She and her family are heading west from Texas when tragedy strikes. There is death, and Indian attacks, and Sarah is forced to save some young girls from rape. She is also shown respect as a warrior when a young Indian pays tribute to her in a way that is most familiar to him. When she finds an abandoned wagon filled with books, we see just how much she wants to learn to read and the price she's going to pay to take those books with her to Arizona.

      This is not a book filled with fun and excitement. It's a look at the day to day struggle that pioneer families had to go through to find a place they could call home. There's quite a bit of tragedy and your heartstrings will be pulled numerous times during the book. Sarah finds marriage and happiness, but not necessarily at the same time.

      I've owned this book for quite a while and despite the great reviews I just never picked it up. It starts off a bit slow but by the time I was a quarter of the way through, I just couldn't put it down. If you enjoy American historical fiction set in the west, I definitely recommend this book.
    • 5/5
      This book is so much better than it sounds like it should be. I put aside other things to sit and read, and it's rare a book makes me do that. As the long-form title indicates, it's the story of a woman and her life from girlhood to what seems like middle age, but the book only covers 20 years and Sarah was still a young woman when the story ended. Based on real historical letters, the book is written in diary entries with a conversational bent. To the author, well done!
    • 5/5
      This was a wonderful story about life in the post-Civil War Arizona territory. The book is written in diary format which was sometimes choppy, but the storyline was worth following. The best part about the story was the audiobook narrator. Valerie Leonard captured Sara Pryne's innocence and emotions perfectly. She turned a four star story into a five star audiobook.
    • 4/5
      Story told as a diary by a woman growing up in the late 1800s in the Arizona territory. Her independence was almost unbelievable but if you want a strong woman character, this is the book for you. It is mostly a romance novel/western written with a strong woman character rather than what you typically find in romance and western genre. Is it great literature, no, it will not hold the test of time but it is an entertaining book. I won't read any more in the series because I just don't like reading series very much. I rated it 4 stars but it really is more a 3.5 read. This was a F2F bookclub read but I don't see that this create much of discussion but I could be wrong.
    • 4/5
      very good, historical journal of Arizona territory pioneer
    • 5/5
      I am a big fan of the American West and enjoy reading about its’ settlement. These Is My Words by Nancy E Turner was, for me, that rare book that brings life to the distant past. I fell into Sarah’s story and was totally swept up in her remarkable life. Reading like a real diary, the life of Sarah Prine is one of hardship, danger, loss and sorrow, but it is also a life filled with strength, determination, and love both of the family and romantic kind. Set in the Arizona Territories between 1881 to 1901, and based on her own grandmothers’ life, we see Sarah develop from a young, uneducated girl into a woman of strength and spirit. The extraordinary characters that people this book help to enrich the story whether it’s of Indians attacking or a simple buggy ride through the young town of Tucson. And if Captain Jack Elliot is a little too good looking, a little too tall, and a little too heroic, well so be it. Another aspect of this book that I really enjoyed were the many details of day-to-day living in this era. From the piecing together of quilts to soap-making, looking after livestock and child rearing, life was hard and the work was never ending, but people managed to endure and even thrive. I could rave on and on about this book, but perhaps I should just end with a strong recommendation to read this captivating and heart-felt story.
    • 5/5
      Reminiscent of the "Little House on the Prairie" books but suited more for adults. I could not put this book down! Can't wait to read the next two books in the series.
    • 4/5
      Sarah Agnes Prine was a fascinating, admirable woman. This story is full of heartbreak, but also joy, humor, and lots of romance. It's fascinating, especially for people living in southwest New Mexico and southeast Arizona, to get such a vivid glimpse into the region of the late 19th century.
    • 4/5
      OK, so I started reading this book because my mom had recommended it, and we alwaysalways agree on books. The first couple of chapters were a struggle for me--a bit dry and somewhat "pioneer-y." But I stuck with it, since Mom was so sure I'd like it.

      WHEW! I think I finished the whole thing in two days. Once the story got rolling, man, it was fascinating! And the quaint but distracting-for-a-grammar-nazi spelling improves after just a few chapters. Which was great, but even if it hadn't, I wouldn't have put this down.

      At heart, this is a romance. And a strong one. The main characters are complex, well-rounded, and only vulnerable in the best places. I've started the sequel, Sarah's Quilt, immediately.
    • 5/5
      I read this book several years ago--after I'd read Jannette Walls', "Half-Broke Horses," which I also liked...more than "The Glass Castle." I think Jeannette must have had a better public relations rep or editor, because this book, "These is my Words" was soooo much better: more evocative scenes, real characters, hardship every which way... I loved this book and have recommended it to anyone who will listen to me!
    • 4/5
      It takes some getting used to at first, since the novel is entirely made up of Sarah's letters, and she is not extremely educated. What she is, though, is incredibly resilient, hard-working, and ambitious, and it was amazing to get this "first-hand" feel of the pioneer experience.
    • 4/5
      This book started a little slow for me. From page 1 to 186 I could take or leave this book, but I like to finish what I start. On page 187 that changed for me. Something happened on that page that touched me to my core and it made me cry for Sarah. From that point on I was hooked.

      Sarah is a pioneer traveling with her family in the western territories of the United States in the late 1800s. She is uneducated, but not ignorant. She is hard-working, loving, feisty, and independent. And she goes through many of the struggles that women of that time had to deal with. Illness, death of loved ones, the instability of the relations between the settlers and the Native Americans. Lots of death in this book, but I don't think it was exaggerated for the time period.

      I loved and hated the ending.
    • 4/5
      The start of this book did remind me an awful lot of Sandra Dallas book: The Diary of Mattie Spenser which was written a decade before in 1998 and is one of my favorites. I really enjoyed this book though although a lot of sad things happen in the book and I even cried (one tear only!) lol.

      Discovered there is a book 2 and 3 so I really want to read those 2 as well.
    • 5/5
      This is without a doubt one of the best books I've read in a long time! I don't very often do books more than once, but I know I am going to read this one again. Thanks, Laura and Tim.