The new novel from the Voice of America's Heartland, Dorothy Garlock.
Two friends, middle-aged Pearl and pretty, young schoolteacher Hallie, have just about decided to leave the rough Western town of Whiskey Bend, where both are disillusioned with the way they have been treated. The final straw comes when they witness their friend Mary being assaulted in the street by her stepbrother Chester and no one steps forward to help her. They decide to leave and take Mary with them. They go out to the shack where Chester and Mary live to get her, but when Chester attacks them, Pearl shoots him in the leg. He screams after the three that he will follow them wherever they go. Desperately they drive away in an open wagon seeking a new life and safety. One night along the way they are caught in a violent storm and Mary nearly drowns in a roiling river. She is saved by a daring young rancher who brings them back to his home to stay until Mary recovers. The rancher has troubles of his own. He is condemned by his mother for having left his father to run the ranch alone years earlier. He is searching for the murderer of his younger brother. And someone now is trying to kill him. Attracted to him and grateful, Hallie vows to help him..
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About the Author:
Dorothy Garlock is the author of over 50 novels that have sold over 15 million copies and are published in 15 languages. She lives in Iowa.
From Publishers Weekly:
Garlock's newest (after On Tall Pine Lake) feels old, and not just because it's set in 1890. Schoolteacher Hallie Wolcott flees Whiskey Bend, Colo., with her friends Pearl and Mary after Mary is beaten by Chester, one of the town's many brutes. Pearl, the eldest, has been through this before, and she won't rest until they find a place that feels safe. Fortunately, a powerful storm leaves them washed up at tumbledown ranch owned by Eli Morgan. Eli's cantankerous and cruel mother wants no part of the women, but she begrudgingly changes her mind when an accident lands her in bed. Meanwhile, Chester's been tracking the ladies; will he find them at the ranch, the place where each woman feels she can finally find true happiness? The answer to this and other cliffhangers are apparent to the reader long before the resolutions are played out on the page. The prose is lifeless, the dialogue wooden and the whole thing reads like a poorly strung-together mishmash of western romance tropes. (Nov.)
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"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherGrand Central Publishing
- Publication date2008
- ISBN 10 0446577936
- ISBN 13 9780446577939
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages368
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Rating