I am a child sexual abuse survivor who struggled for years with the help of therapy to become the person I am today. My sister, my mother, and I suffered years of emotional abuse by my father. When I was a child, my best friend (who also suffered abuse by her brother) and I made up stories that helped us navigate the situations in our families. I read, hiked, backpacked, and traveled alone for years in order to take
risks and develop strength before attempting to write at age sixty-one. I love books that put me solidly in time and place and deeply empathize with characters who struggle and grow to become their genuine selves.
I love this book mainly because the main character is an ordinary young woman with grit who defies all hostility in Missouri during the Civil War, including neighbors who turn against her.
I went through lots of emotions with this character during her journey to finding love, from anger and trepidation to wonder and exhilaration. The setting, historical context, and unsentimental yet tender and poetic writing make this book a triumph.
"A gritty, memorable book ... it is a delight from start to finish, without a single misstep." Tracy Chevalier
Missouri, 1865. Adair Colley and her family have managed to hide from the bloody Armageddon of the American Civil War, but finally even their remote mountain farm cannot escape the plundering greed of the Union militia. Her house is burnt, her father beaten and dragged away. With fierce determination, Adair sets out after him on foot. So begins an extraordinary voyage which will see Adair herself denounced as a Confederate spy and thrown in jail. Here she falls passionately in love…
I love this book because I was emotionally blown away by this beautifully written tale of a fourteen-year-old boy’s journey across the war-driven South. I experienced his change from a naïve young boy to manhood. How can something so tragic be written so poetically yet simply? I want and need to feel strong emotion when I read, to be connected to the character(s). I certainly was here.
This was the first book I read by Robert Olmstead, but it hasn’t been the last.
When Robey Childs's mother has a premonition about her husband, a soldier fighting in the Civil War, she does the unthinkable: she sends her only child to find his father on the battlefield and bring him home.
At fourteen, wearing the coat his mother sewed to ensure his safety—blue on one side, gray on the other— Robey thinks he's off on a great adventure. But not far from home, his horse falters and he realizes the enormity of his task. It takes the gift of a powerful and noble coal black horse to show him how to undertake the most…
In May 1941, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, hums with talk of spring flowers, fishing derbies, and the growing war in Europe. And for the residents of a quiet neighborhood boarding house, the winds of change are blowing.
Self-proclaimed spinster, Bessie Blackwell, is the reluctant owner of a new pair of glasses. The…
I love this book because I became deeply involved with every one of the characters and how they were changed by their interactions with one another and by the results of their first experience with another salient species. The book involves the age-old questions of faith, God, religion, and humanity. Beautiful and haunting.
'The Sparrow is one of my favourite science fiction novels and it destroyed me in the best way when I read it. It is so beautifully written and the construction of the narrative is masterful.' Emma Newman, acclaimed author of Planetfall
Set in the 21st century - a number of decades from now - The Sparrow is the story of a charismatic Jesuit priest and talented linguist, Emilio Sandoz, who - in response to a remarkable radio signal from the depths of space - leads a scientific mission to make first contact with an extraterrestrial culture.
I love this book because the protagonist—gritty, hard-talking heart-of-gold Ruby Fortune—is a lady as tough as the Arizona land she comes from and loves. She cusses and shoots, rides horses, entertains and cooks, and takes no guff from men. But first, she must rid herself of an abusive husband in order to save herself and her young boys.
I am partial to a cast of characters in what I read, and a remarkable cast joins her in this exquisitely written story. Her father Big Burl, her chosen mother who’s a madame, the Shakespeare-quoting drunk she puts up in her barn, the law man, and the black miner with whom she secretly falls in love.
Arizona Territory, 1899. Ruby Fortune faces an untenable choice: murder her abusive husband or continue to live with bruises that never heal. One bullet is all it takes. Once known as “Girl Wonder” on the Wild West circuit, Ruby is now a single mother of four boys in her hometown of Jericho, an end-of-the-world mining town north of Tucson. Here, Ruby opens a roadside inn to make ends meet. Drifters, grifters, con men, and prostitutes plow through the hotel’s doors, and their escapades pepper the local newspaper like buckshot.…
What's the point of having it all when you have no one to share it with?
Brandon Miller has everything—except a commitment from the woman he loves. Angela Cooper has deep scars from a previous marriage. She's not interested in a do-over with Brandon or anyone.
I love this book because seldom have I read a novel where voice, time, and place are so perfectly portrayed as in The Hearts of Horses.
Molly Glass has become one of my favorite authors, and I read her books as soon as I discover them. If you love horses, you will love this story. If you don't, you will become attached to nineteen-year-old horse trainer Martha Lessen and the other engaging characters as they struggle to make ends meet in the beautiful remote county of 1917 eastern Oregon. This story played my heartstrings as few others have.
In the winter of 1917, a big-boned young woman shows up at George Bliss's doorstep. She's looking for a job breaking horses, and he hires her. Many of his regular hands are off fighting the war in Europe, and he glimpses beneath her showy rodeo garb, a shy but determined girl with a serious knowledge of horses.
So begins the irresistable tale of Martha Lessen, a female horse whisperer trying to make a go of it in a man's world. Along the way, Martha helps a German family, ostracised by the community, to save their horses, gentles another horse for…
Adrien Villere desperately locks away his feelings and fears—but eventually, tragedy and loss drive him to seeking solace from young neighbor Jacob Hart. Jacob betrays Adrien, setting off a chain of actions from which neither Adrien’s wise sister, Bernadette, nor his closest friend, enslaved Isaac, can turn him.
Two contrasting plantation families interact in a society where strict rules of behavior are clear, and public opinion can shape an entire life. Papa Villere guards several secrets that could destroy his entire family. Nineteenth-century Texan culture and history come to life as the story develops in a manner where sexual inclination is only a part of social and political transformation.
This book is an elegiac meditation on the will to survive. Tor, a beluga whaler, and his wife, Astrid, a botanist specializing in Arctic flora, are stranded during the dark season of 1937-38 at his remote whaling station in the Svalbard archipelago when they misjudge ice conditions and fail to…
Cleo Cooper, a cross-cultural psychology professor, is living the dream on the Big Island of Hawaii. With ocean-dipping weekends, she enjoys her dog, her job, and her boyfriend Ben - until the day she’s on a research vessel and a dead body is caught in the dragline.
