
The Swan Bonnet
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $19.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Pamela Hershey
About this listen
Unbeknown to Dawn, her grandfather has shot an old swan out of mercy. In their coastal Alaskan town, her father buys the swan pelt, preventing her Uncle Alex, a fur trader, from selling it for export. Dawn’s father surprises her part-Aleut mother with a hat she helped to make and also with an idea to catch poachers. Shooting swans has become illegal but Alaska is a territory and prohibition occupies the Sheriff.
Dawn and her mother become involved with suspicious inquiries about the swan bonnet besides its haunting effect. Because Dawn’s grandparents see the swans first, Dawn agrees to secretly watch the migration with the deputy sheriff’s son. But after she and her mother encounter women from a ship and find out about a hunting party, they ride to the inlet. There are townspeople roving the shore too but who is the vigilante and who is the poacher?
Gold Star book at the HarperCollins Editor's Desk, 2010, Authonomy.com
©2013 Katherine L. Holmes (P)2020 Katherine L. HolmesListeners also enjoyed...
-
Travels with Charley in Search of America
- By: John Steinbeck
- Narrated by: Gary Sinise
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In September 1960, John Steinbeck and his poodle, Charley, embarked on a journey across America, from small towns to growing cities to glorious wilderness oases. Travels with Charley is animated by Steinbeck’s attention to the specific details of the natural world and his sense of how the lives of people are intimately connected to the rhythms of nature—to weather, geography, the cycles of the seasons. His keen ear for the transactions among people is evident, too, as he records the interests and obsessions that preoccupy the Americans he encounters along the way.
-
-
Gary Sinise is fantastic!
- By C. Wilson on 01-11-17
By: John Steinbeck
-
The Night Watchman
- By: Louise Erdrich
- Narrated by: Louise Erdrich
- Length: 13 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on the extraordinary life of National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich’s grandfather who worked as a night watchman and carried the fight against Native dispossession from rural North Dakota all the way to Washington, DC, this powerful novel explores themes of love and death with lightness and gravity and unfolds with the elegant prose, sly humor, and depth of feeling of a master craftsman.
-
-
Beautiful
- By Melanie on 03-09-20
By: Louise Erdrich
-
Alexander's Bridge
- By: Willa Cather
- Narrated by: Marguerite Gavin
- Length: 2 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Willa Cather renders the tough inner terrain of a man in mid-life crisis. Bartley Alexander is a master bridge engineer. At 43 he is at the height of his power, comfortable with success and all it brings. Yet he yearns for the lost vibrancy of his youth. He leads a double life, veering between his beautiful, accomplished wife and his mistress, an actress he knew as a student in Paris. The conflict creates a crack in the structure of his life that ultimately undermines him.
-
-
Written with empathy and poetry
- By SHIRLEY R BARKER on 06-30-23
By: Willa Cather
-
Chenneville
- A Novel of Murder, Loss, and Vengeance
- By: Paulette Jiles
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Union soldier John Chenneville suffered a traumatic head wound in battle. His recovery took the better part of a year as he struggled to regain his senses and mobility. By the time he returned home, the Civil War was over, but tragedy awaited. John’s beloved sister and her family had been brutally murdered. Their killer goes by many names. He fought for the North in the late unpleasantness, and wore a badge in the name of the law. But the man John knows as A. J. Dodd is little more than a rabid animal, slaughtering without reason or remorse, needing to be put down.
-
-
Good story bad narration
- By Taryn on 02-19-24
By: Paulette Jiles
-
Caddie Woodlawn
- By: Carol Ryrie Brink
- Narrated by: Roslyn Alexander
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
No one would accuse 11-year-old Caddie Woodlawn of being dainty and ladylike. In spite of her mother’s best efforts, Caddie is as wild as the wind, playing freely and rambunctiously with her two brothers in the Wisconsin backwoods. There are rafts to build and trees to climb and pranks to play. Caddie especially likes to watch her friend Indian John build birchbark canoes at the river. Every day seems wide with possibility - as wide as the frontier. But living on the edge of civilization has its risks, too....
-
-
excellent book
- By Julie Jenkins on 10-14-16
-
Farmer
- By: Jim Harrison
- Narrated by: Christian Baskous
- Length: 5 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Farmer, Jim Harrison tells the story of Joseph, a 43-year-old farmer and school teacher who suddenly finds himself at a crossroads. Forced to choose between two lovers - one a younger woman, the other his beautiful childhood friend - he must also decide whether or not to stay on the farm or finally seek the wider, more broader horizons he has avoided all his life.
-
-
Not what I expected.
- By Liberty Bell on 02-08-21
By: Jim Harrison
-
Travels with Charley in Search of America
- By: John Steinbeck
- Narrated by: Gary Sinise
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In September 1960, John Steinbeck and his poodle, Charley, embarked on a journey across America, from small towns to growing cities to glorious wilderness oases. Travels with Charley is animated by Steinbeck’s attention to the specific details of the natural world and his sense of how the lives of people are intimately connected to the rhythms of nature—to weather, geography, the cycles of the seasons. His keen ear for the transactions among people is evident, too, as he records the interests and obsessions that preoccupy the Americans he encounters along the way.
-
-
Gary Sinise is fantastic!
- By C. Wilson on 01-11-17
By: John Steinbeck
-
The Night Watchman
- By: Louise Erdrich
- Narrated by: Louise Erdrich
- Length: 13 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on the extraordinary life of National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich’s grandfather who worked as a night watchman and carried the fight against Native dispossession from rural North Dakota all the way to Washington, DC, this powerful novel explores themes of love and death with lightness and gravity and unfolds with the elegant prose, sly humor, and depth of feeling of a master craftsman.
-
-
Beautiful
- By Melanie on 03-09-20
By: Louise Erdrich
-
Alexander's Bridge
- By: Willa Cather
- Narrated by: Marguerite Gavin
- Length: 2 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Willa Cather renders the tough inner terrain of a man in mid-life crisis. Bartley Alexander is a master bridge engineer. At 43 he is at the height of his power, comfortable with success and all it brings. Yet he yearns for the lost vibrancy of his youth. He leads a double life, veering between his beautiful, accomplished wife and his mistress, an actress he knew as a student in Paris. The conflict creates a crack in the structure of his life that ultimately undermines him.
-
-
Written with empathy and poetry
- By SHIRLEY R BARKER on 06-30-23
By: Willa Cather
-
Chenneville
- A Novel of Murder, Loss, and Vengeance
- By: Paulette Jiles
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Union soldier John Chenneville suffered a traumatic head wound in battle. His recovery took the better part of a year as he struggled to regain his senses and mobility. By the time he returned home, the Civil War was over, but tragedy awaited. John’s beloved sister and her family had been brutally murdered. Their killer goes by many names. He fought for the North in the late unpleasantness, and wore a badge in the name of the law. But the man John knows as A. J. Dodd is little more than a rabid animal, slaughtering without reason or remorse, needing to be put down.
-
-
Good story bad narration
- By Taryn on 02-19-24
By: Paulette Jiles
-
Caddie Woodlawn
- By: Carol Ryrie Brink
- Narrated by: Roslyn Alexander
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
No one would accuse 11-year-old Caddie Woodlawn of being dainty and ladylike. In spite of her mother’s best efforts, Caddie is as wild as the wind, playing freely and rambunctiously with her two brothers in the Wisconsin backwoods. There are rafts to build and trees to climb and pranks to play. Caddie especially likes to watch her friend Indian John build birchbark canoes at the river. Every day seems wide with possibility - as wide as the frontier. But living on the edge of civilization has its risks, too....
-
-
excellent book
- By Julie Jenkins on 10-14-16
-
Farmer
- By: Jim Harrison
- Narrated by: Christian Baskous
- Length: 5 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Farmer, Jim Harrison tells the story of Joseph, a 43-year-old farmer and school teacher who suddenly finds himself at a crossroads. Forced to choose between two lovers - one a younger woman, the other his beautiful childhood friend - he must also decide whether or not to stay on the farm or finally seek the wider, more broader horizons he has avoided all his life.
-
-
Not what I expected.
- By Liberty Bell on 02-08-21
By: Jim Harrison
-
The Power of the Dog
- A Novel
- By: Thomas Savage, Annie Proulx - afterword
- Narrated by: Chad Michael Collins, Annie Proulx
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in the wide-open spaces of the American West, The Power of the Dog is a stunning story of domestic tyranny, brutal masculinity, and thrilling defiance from one of the most powerful and distinctive voices in American literature. The novel tells the story of two brothers—one magnetic but cruel, the other gentle and quiet—and of the mother and son whose arrival on the brothers’ ranch shatters an already tenuous peace.
-
-
Abrupt Ending and Hard to Follow Story
- By Trevor on 09-08-21
By: Thomas Savage, and others
-
The Nick Adams Stories
- By: Ernest Hemingway
- Narrated by: Stacy Keach
- Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"Of the place where he had been a boy he had written well enough. As well as he could then." So thought a dying writer in an early version of The Snows of Kilimanjaro. The writer was, of course, Ernest Hemingway. The place was the Michigan of his boyhood, where he remembered himself as Nick Adams. The now-famous "Nick Adams" stories show a memorable character growing from child to adolescent to soldier, veteran, writer, and parent - a sequence closely paralleling the events of Hemingway's life.
-
-
Let Nick Adams introduce you to Ernest Hemingway
- By Paul on 04-04-12
By: Ernest Hemingway
-
Calder Brand
- By: Janet Dailey
- Narrated by: Graham Winton
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ambition drove Joe Dollarhide across the parched plains from Fort Sam Houston to Dodge City. One day, he was determined to have a spread every bit as vast and impressive as his employer's. But when a wild stampede separates him from the cattle drive, it is survival that keeps him going when most would have given up. Survival and a burning need to settle the score with Benteen Calder, the cattle boss he used to worship, the man who left him for dead.
-
-
Captivating
- By Blake Bassett on 07-27-24
By: Janet Dailey
-
In Sight of the Mountain
- By: Jamie McGillen
- Narrated by: Sarah Brands
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the devastating aftermath of the 1889 Great Seattle Fire, 19-year-old Anna Gallagher faces considerable pressure to marry well and soon. But she has no intention of giving up her freedom to keep house. She wants to be the first woman to summit Mount Rainier. Anna's grandfather couldn't disapprove more. And after he discovers that she's befriended a Duwamish woman in the forest, he threatens to disown her completely.
-
-
Beautifully Written
- By Megan Rice on 06-05-20
By: Jamie McGillen
-
The Return of Kid Cooper
- A Novel
- By: Brad Smith
- Narrated by: Milton Bagby
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The year is 1910. Nate Cooper is an old-school cowboy. He sees the change brought by the turn of the century and reckons none of it to be good. Even after spending nearly 30 years in a Montana prison for a wrongful murder conviction, Nate’s moral compass is true and unwavering: He does all the wrong things for all the right reasons. So when he returns to his northern Montana ranching town to find the Blackfoot Indians - the people he went to prison trying to defend - are still being cheated out of their territory by ranchers, Nate can’t rest on his laurels.
-
-
Great Western
- By RueRue on 10-22-19
By: Brad Smith
-
A Claim of Her Own
- By: Stephanie Grace Whitson
- Narrated by: Linda Stephens
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in the wilds of 1876 South Dakota, A Claim of Her Own by two-time Christy Award finalist Stephanie Grace Whitson follows the fortunes of 20-year-old Mattie O'Keefe as she embarks upon an arduous journey to find her brother Dillon. When she reaches the gold-rush boomtown of Deadwood, no one seems to know where Dillon is. The resourceful Mattie begins to pan for gold anyhow, hoping her brother will soon arrive. But a relentless stalker draws closer to his prey.
-
-
Excellent Listen
- By Teresa on 02-20-13
-
The Old Buzzard Had It Coming
- An Alafair Tucker Mystery, Book 1
- By: Donis Casey
- Narrated by: Pam Ward
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alafair Tucker is a strong woman and the core of her family’s life on a farm in Oklahoma where backbreaking work and the daily logistics of caring for her husband and their nine children, and of being a good neighbor, requires determination and a clear head. She’s also a woman of strong opinions, and it is her opinion that her neighbor, Harley Day, is a drunkard and a reprobate. So, when Harley’s body is discovered frozen in a snowdrift one January day in 1912, she isn’t surprised that his long-suffering family isn’t particularly broken up. When Alafair helps Harley’s wife prepare the body for burial, she discovers that Harley’s demise was anything but natural.
-
-
1912 Oklahoma Farm Life Plus a Mystery
- By Sara on 06-04-14
By: Donis Casey
-
A Most Unsuitable Match
- By: Stephanie Grace Whitson
- Narrated by: Kate Forbes
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A multiple Christy Award finalist, best-selling author Stephanie Grace Whitson is acclaimed for her novels of the American frontier. In this soul-stirring tale, an unlikely attraction occurs between two passengers on a steamboat heading up the Missouri River. The Reverend Samuel Beck is on a mission to evangelize the rough-hewn settlers in the wilds of Montana, while the well-to-do Miss Fannie Rousseau is determined to solve a mystery that surfaced after her mother’s death. With little in common, they wonder if their paths will ever cross again.
-
-
Good listen.
- By Keri vW on 06-27-17
-
Cataloochee
- By: Wayne Caldwell
- Narrated by: Scott Sowers
- Length: 12 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Debut novelist Wayne Caldwell's Cataloochee -a rich, vivid, arresting work beginning at the dawn of Reconstruction - sprawls across the succeeding generations like the vast green mountains of its rural North Carolina setting. Best-selling author Charles Frazier calls it "a brilliant portrait of a community and a way of life long gone, a lost America." This enthralling saga evokes the full color spectrum of mountain life, from lights to darks and every shade in between.
-
-
Love It!
- By Cynthia J. Hakansson on 02-27-09
By: Wayne Caldwell
-
Shadow on the Mesa
- By: Lee Martin
- Narrated by: Gene Engene
- Length: 7 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Wes Montana's Arapaho mother is murdered‚ the hired gun discovers his white father, Ray Eastman‚ who had abandoned them before Wes was born‚ is still alive‚ wealthy with family‚ and may have ordered her death. Swearing vengeance on his own father‚ Wes yet finds himself on his father's side in the middle of a range war fueled by Eastman's unfaithful wife.
-
-
Good Western
- By Lady M on 01-18-17
By: Lee Martin
-
The Lighthouse Road
- A Novel
- By: Peter Geye
- Narrated by: Tara Ochs
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The story moves back and forth in time from the arrival of Thea from her isolated village in arctic Norway in search of a new life in the near wilderness of a small town and logging camp on the shore of Lake Superior to the travails of her orphaned son, Odd, some twenty years later. When Thea’s aunt and uncle do not meet her boat as planned, she’s initially left abandoned with no money or prospects and without speaking the language.
-
-
Narrator wrecks storyline
- By customer on 12-01-17
By: Peter Geye
-
Our Only May Amelia
- By: Jennifer L. Holm
- Narrated by: Emmy Rossum
- Length: 4 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It isn't easy being a pioneer in the state of Washington in 1899 - particularly when you are the only girl ever born to the new settlement. With seven older brothers and a love of adventure, May Amelia Jackson just can't seem to abide her family's insistence that she behave like a Proper Young Lady. Not when there's fishing to be done, sheep to be herded, and real live murderers to be captured!
-
-
May Amelia a miracle 🥹
- By Jacob on 11-14-22
By: Jennifer L. Holm
Critic reviews
“What a relaxing, classic, and vibrant story.” (HarperCollins review at Authonomy.com)
“...many readers will find this nostalgic 'study' of individuals in a time and place when life was both simple and complex but 'loser to earth' most thought provoking and enjoyable” (John Manhold, Historical Novel Society
“Beautiful characterizations and clear insights into frontier days in the Alaska of the Prohibition Era” (Sterling Gate Books)
What listeners say about The Swan Bonnet
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Charla White
- 04-06-21
A Swan Story with Heart
Katherine L. Holmes created this young adult as a coming-of-age story of Dawn. The character development of Dawn and her family is well done as well as integral to the story. The small-town mindset of the Alaskan territory included civilized changes. The descriptions were vivid with the delightful narration by Pamela Hershey.
The swans' story and their annual migration on the Alaskan coast roughly one hundred years ago is a focus. For three generations, Dawn's family has been involved with the swans' migration as they return in summer. Dawn's Grandma Glenda recognizes many of the swans and names them. They care for them and teach their children and children's children to appreciate these magnificent creatures.
Swan feathers are valuable, and poachers are illegally shooting them then exporting them. Getting common hunters redirected became a common practice. Dawn's Uncle Alex is a hunter and tries to misdirect poachers to help preserve the swans. Since swans mate for life when a spouse dies, their mate soon follows. Such was the case with one of the birds named Bustle. The family found the dead carcass and fashioned a hat for Dawn's mom. At the height of the changes in poaching laws, she makes quite a statement by wearing it to town.
This is a good story and recommended for the young adult reader. I liked the flavor and description of the times. The language is easy to listen to and understand. It provides a little history of other cultures and a time sadly gone. The narration was excellent with pacing and tone. There were no issues with the quality of this audible.
Disclaimer: This Audiobook was provided free of charge by the author, narrator, and/or publisher in exchange for a non-bias, honest review.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!