Review by Booklist Review
In this lyrical debut novel, a "small fateful twist" overtakes an isolated young woman seeking the courage and resilience to keep flowing forward, as a river, against all obstacles, in post-WWII Colorado. Victoria's horizons are circumscribed by caring for the family's prized orchard and her troubled father, uncle, and volatile brother. An accident years ago took her mother, leaving Victoria ignorant of love and sexuality until a chance meeting with a gentle, enigmatic drifter. Fearing the consequences, she heads to the mountains, where, bolstered by nature and the surety of Wil's love, she battles to keep "doing the next right thing" to save herself and the things she treasures. Read, a fifth-generation Coloradan, draws characters and settings with period authenticity, stunning imagery, and deft metaphors--a mountain peak, for example, "glow[s] as soft as hand-churned butter"; a storm-eroded riverbank evokes fate. Forward to 1971, where Victoria "pace[s] the shoreline" of the reservoir beneath which lie the ruins of her childhood, anxiously awaiting a reckoning with the hardest choice she ever made.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
A young woman's courage is tested in Read's affecting if undercooked debut, set in 1940s Colorado. Victoria Nash, 17 cares for her brother and father after her mother's death, while helping keep up the family's peach farm. She's stifled by the controlling men in her life, so she takes comfort in fellow teen Wilson Moon, an openhearted newcomer who returns Victoria's feelings. Because Wilson isn't accepted by Victoria's family or the community due to his Native American heritage, the couple hide their relationship. After Victoria learns she is pregnant, she flees alone to the forest for several months and has the child there. She leaves the baby with a couple she finds picnicking, in hopes the child will have a better life, and returns to her family. In the final act, set in 1970, Victoria learns of her son's life through a series of letters, and Wilson's fate becomes clear. The fleeting nature of Victoria's two important relationships leaves them a bit underdeveloped, but Read beautifully evokes Victoria's aching love for Wilson: "I wanted more of him, like a craving for sunshine hidden too long behind the clouds." Though the family story is a bit too drawn out, there are plenty of shining moments. Agent: Sandra Bond, Bond Literary. (Mar.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A stranger comes to town. Colorado native Read sets her graceful debut novel in the small community of Iola, a town along the Gunnison River in the western part of the state. Iola, readers learn in the first pages, no longer exists: It was flooded when the Gunnison was dammed to create the Blue Mesa Reservoir. But in 1948, when Read's tale begins, Iola is the home of 17-year-old Victoria Nash, who keeps house for her father, a peach farmer; an embittered uncle who uses a wheelchair because of war injuries; and her angry, vengeful brother. Her mother, aunt, and a beloved cousin were killed in an auto accident when Torie was 12, leaving each family member bereft and Torie resigned to the burden of caretaking. After her mother died, Torie realized, "the men expected me to slip silently into her role--to cook their meals, clean their pee off the toilet, wash and hang their soiled clothes, and tend to every last thing in the house and the coops and the garden." She hardly leaves her family's 47 acres except to go to town, where, one day, she notices a young man who attracts her attention as no one has before. He has tan skin, straight black hair, gentle eyes, and a dazzling smile. His name is Wilson Moon, and to Torie, he seems mysterious and exotic. He had been working in the coal mines, he tells Torie, and he had run away. Now, he's looking for the local flophouse, where he hopes to find a room. Read delicately unfurls the growing attraction between Torie and Wil, set against the town's vicious bigotry toward Native Americans. Their love is the "small fateful twist" that forever changes the trajectory of Torie's life. With delicate precision, Read evokes both Colorado's rugged wilderness and the landscapes of her characters' troubled hearts. An auspicious debut. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
