A surprisingly compelling tale about family, loyalty, North Dakota, and oil drilling.
A middle-aged widow returns to North Dakota for her father’s funeral and rediscovers her attachment to her hometown in this debut novel.
After receiving news in Minnesota that her father, Buddy Altman, has died, Ramona “Mony” Brady-Strong boards a train to North Dakota. During the ride, she meets a handsome man named John and decides to escape her grief by spending the night in his sleeping car. Little does she know that John is also traveling to Williston, North Dakota, because of Buddy’s death. Mony has never shared the same last name as her father, and the oil-drilling industry is abuzz thinking that Buddy has died without an heir “to the substantial parcel of land he had owned, which included two producing oil wells.” When Mony reaches Williston, she learns that she stands to inherit unfathomable wealth from her father, but only if she asserts her claim to his holdings. She also reconnects with Nate Ferguson, her first great love, who is clearly still carrying a torch for her. As the big city oil magnates attempt to steal Mony’s birthright, her family and friends band together to protect their own. Yet as Mony lingers in Williston, painful secrets from her past emerge, and she wonders whether she can ever escape the mistakes of her youth. Bradley’s series opener suffers from some narrative pitfalls, such as shifting abruptly between differing perspectives and alternating precipitously between flowery prose and starkly functional statements. But the author has created complex characters who will keep readers turning pages. Bradley also manages to wield one suspenseful scene after another through the tension over the ownership of Buddy’s oil fields and mysteries about Mony’s past. The author deftly reveals juicy tidbits, answering certain questions while creating new puzzles. Chock full of information about drilling and ownership of mineral rights as well as details about the harsh realities of life in rural North Dakota, the book is an education on the oil industry. The volume ends with several unresolved plotlines, intended to lead readers to the sequel.
A surprisingly compelling tale about family, loyalty, North Dakota, and oil drilling.Pub Date: July 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-63489-149-3
Page Count: 370
Publisher: Wise Ink
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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