Award winning author Jamie Lisa Forbes brings us the story of Rowen Hart, raised as the pampered son and only child of a prominent family in the small community of White Rock, North Carolina. It's the 1950's and he's drifting through the days, following the life path his parents have planned for him when his world is upturned by his father's suicide. Now he finds himself as the sole support of his mother and dependent on his pitiless uncle who had been his father's business partner.
Ill-prepared to assume responsibility, Rowen struggles for a foothold in a world unsympathetic to his plight. More disruption ensues when a neighbor's ten year old daughter comes to live with Rowen and his family, baffling him with her wild behavior and insistent attempts to win his approval. Though she makes his responsibilities even more overwhelming, her blunt honesty sticks with him, casting doubt on the assumptions he has held.
As Rowen tries to find the way forward, he begins to question everything about his upbringing, his community, his circumstances and his plans for the future as they turn to dust in his hands.
Autorentext
Jamie Lisa Forbes was raised on a ranch in the Little Laramie Valley near Laramie, Wyoming. She attended the University of Colorado where she obtained degrees in English and philosophy. After fourteen months living in Israel, she returned to her family's ranch where she lived for another fifteen years. In 1994, she moved to Greensboro, North Carolina. In 2001, she graduated from the University of North Carolina School of Law and began her North Carolina law practice. Forbes' first novel, Unbroken, won the WILLA Literary Award for Contemporary Fiction in 2011. Her collection of short stories, The Widow Smalls and Other Stories, won the High Plains Book Awards for a short story collection in 2015. Forbes' novel of rural North Carolina in the segregation era, entitled Eden, was published in 2020. Her law practice gave her the opportunity to travel many of the back roads of North Carolina and meet the unique and diverse individuals who inspired Eden. Her historical novel about women bronc riders in the early days of rodeo, entitled Sunny Gale--A Novel, was published in May 2024 by Pronghorn Press. Sunny Gale has received numerous accolades including the 2025 Will Rogers Silver Medallion for historical fiction and it was listed in Best Indie Books of 2024 by Kirkus Reviews. Ms. Forbes continues to live-and write-in North Carolina.