Joelle’s Secret

by Gilbert Morris Book 3 in the Wagon Wheel series.

First published 2008

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4.1(598)

Seventeen-year-old Joelle Jones runs away after her mother's death leaves her under the legal control of a predatory stepfather. To avoid being found, she cuts her hair, dresses as a young man and takes work as a stable hand before joining a wagon train heading towards California and the promise of gold.

Maintaining the disguise becomes harder under the physical demands of overland travel. Joelle's closest companion believes she is male until circumstances force the truth into the open, changing a friendship already shaped by questions of faith and trust. The novel uses the wagon journey as both escape and test: the road west offers Joelle a chance to choose her own future, but only if she can survive the dangers of migration and the man determined to reclaim control over her.