In WHERE COYOTES HOWL, Sandra Dallas’ new novel, homesteaders are settling the vast Wyoming plains in 1916. Ellen Webster is ready for an adventure. Her parents are gone, and her sister is married. When she answers a newspaper ad for a teacher in the small, untamed town of Wallace, she doesn’t think her one year of teaching in Fort Madison, Iowa, is enough experience to get her the job. But surprisingly it does, and she embarks on the journey of a lifetime. She finally has found her purpose.

"Readers will feel the wind and snow blowing, the sense of isolation and loneliness, and the love and friendship that survive the toughest of times."

The flat prairie landscape is so different from what Ellen expected, but she loves her new job. The students and the community respect her, and soon she meets “the one.” It’s also love at first sight for Charlie Bacon, a cowboy who works for a local rancher. He buys some land and a small house outside of town, and they begin their new life together.

Ellen learns to garden and work the ranch alongside Charlie, and she gets to know her neighbors. Gladys, a former prostitute who is expecting a child with her rancher husband, becomes Ellen’s closest friend. Ellen also befriends an older lady who has become isolated, and another woman who has more children than she knows what to do with and a husband who can’t figure out how to be a farmer or a father.

Ellen’s small but strong community struggles when a fire and the harsh prairie winter take away some of their youngest members. And when the abused wife of Ellen’s former landlord arrives on their doorstep battered and abused, Ellen and Charlie do not hesitate to help. Life in Wyoming is harder than Ellen expected, but also more rewarding than she ever imagined. Despite the droughts and blizzards, the insect infestations and crop failures, she and her husband endure, as does their love for each other.

Sandra Dallas has written a quintessential Western story, with its vast unforgiving landscape and the unrelenting characters who come to life on the page. Readers will feel the wind and snow blowing, the sense of isolation and loneliness, and the love and friendship that survive the toughest of times.