Mattie and Luke Spenser hardly know each other when they marry. Soon after marrying they take off from Fort Madison, Iowa in a covered wagon across the Great Plains to establish a homestead in Colorado Territory. Lacking any close friends or family nearby, Mattie confides in her journal and writes of the trials they face on the prairie and her loneliness and frustrations as she learns about her new husband and her role as his wife. When a girl Luke left behind in Fort Madison threatens to destroy their marriage, Luke and Mattie learn to work as a team and build a home and a life together on the frontier. A short, enjoyable historical fiction novel about pioneer life, The Diary of Mattie Spenser was a finalist for Western Writers of America Best Western Novel of 1998.