Over Paradise Ridge: A Romance

In 1915, Maria Thompson Daviess crafted a romance that refuses to end at the altar. Betty stands at the center of two men who see her completely differently: Sam Crittenden, who abandoned a bright future in the city for the honest work of farming Paradise Ridge, and Pete Vandyne, the poet who believes she's his muse, the inspiration for his art. What makes this novel endure isn't its love triangle - it's the question underneath: what do we sacrifice when we choose love, and does that sacrifice diminish us or complete us? Betty must leave one world behind, and the novel asks whether leaving can ever feel like gaining. For readers who cherish early 20th century women's fiction that treats romantic choice as moral reckoning.