Stormy Weather

You know this is going to be a great book from the author who treated us to other historical adventures such as The Color of Lightning, Enemy Women, and News of the World. Jiles has the skills to recreate a period in time so tangible, the reader feels like they've been dropped through a time portal, and Stormy Weather is no exception. Set during the darkest years of the depression, a woman and her daughters battle cruel hardships alone on an abandoned farm, relying and setting their hopes on their only legacy—a dangerous, rogue racehorse named Smoky… show more.

For me, the most important thing in writing historical fiction is to discover a character that the reader can fall in love with and root for. Jiles’s Jeanine is just that character. Growing up in dustbowl Texas with the weight of her crumbling world on her shoulders, Jeanine projects the necessary courage and wit to survive and get what she’s after. One thing she’s after is Ross Everett, and in Jeanine he’s met his equal in cleverness, determination, and sass. All Jiles’s characters shine, but in Jeanine she’s found a treasure.