Lily’s Tears and Clara’s Fears

Two sisters. Two journeys across a changing America. One story of courage, fear, survival, and the enduring bond of family.In nineteenth-century America, sisters Lily and Clara begin life together in New York State, but the choices they make will eventually carry them toward very different futures.Lily dreams of marriage, family, and adventure in the West. Her journey ultimately takes her and her family along the Oregon Trail toward Oregon Territory. But the life she hoped for gradually becomes one marked by hardship, isolation, and an increasingly abusive marriage. Her struggle for survival will ultimately lead to a shocking act, a murder trial, and consequences few women of her time could have escaped.Clara’s journey takes her toward the emerging Kansas Territory, where frontier life brings its own uncertainty, loss, cultural encounters, and unexpected relationships. As the sisters become separated by distance and circumstance, each must find her own strength in a country undergoing profound change.Inspired by the experiences of two real nineteenth-century women, including one of the author’s ancestors, and incorporating a true 1854 Oregon Territory murder case, Lily’s Tears and Clara’s Fears blends historical fiction with an intimate story of sisterhood, domestic violence, resilience, kindness, and survival.Against the backdrop of westward expansion, the Oregon Trail, frontier settlements, and changing relationships between settlers and Native peoples, Michael C. Hubbard explores not only where these women traveled, but what they endured along the way.A historical novel about the courage required to survive when the life you imagined becomes something entirely different.