The Gates of Eden

Inspired by a true story ...

When Josephine Bell discovers how quickly one can descend from middle-class Victorian comfort to the slums of Liverpool, she makes a fateful decision.

Seeking escape from desperate poverty, the girl joins a community of kindly strangers and embarks on an epic journey across a treacherous ocean and into the North American wilderness, pulling a two-wheeled handcart over the Rocky Mountains to a remote desert kingdom.

In her new home, a Mormon settlement in the Utah Territory, Josephine is pressed into a polygamous marriage with a man almost four decades older than herself. Amidst a backdrop of rising violence and haunting tragedy, Josephine's struggle to find her own path takes her to unexpected places.

The Gates of Eden explores the timeless mysteries of faith and doubt, fear and love through the eyes of a girl on the cusp of adulthood.

Author: Nadene Lecheminant
Publisher: Cottage Street Books
Published: 02/22/2019
Pages: 318
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.03lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.71d
ISBN: 9780960021505

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 12/02/2019

About the Author
Lecheminant, Nadene: - "Nadene LeCheminant has degrees in history and art from Utah State University. As a university writer and magazine editor, she has been recognized with eight top-tier CASE writing awards, and as a public speaker she has provided communications strategies to national and regional nonprofit organizations. Her love of the southern Utah desert - the backdrop for much of The Gates of Eden - was nurtured on a bare-bones survival trip, during which she walked several hundred miles across the Utah wilderness without a sleeping bag or tent. LeCheminant lives in Salem, Oregon, with her husband, Richard Yates. This is her first novel."