October 2010

Nicholas Evans has been a favorite author of mine for years. He writes brilliantly about human emotion and the human spirit. While he is best known for THE HORSE WHISPERER, I still am haunted by the story in THE DIVIDE, which brilliantly explored the unraveling of a marriage. There are lines he has written there that are brutally honest and refreshingly stark and bold. In each of his books, he treads into relationships that work only because he is brave enough to go there. And thinking of this, I realize how apt it is that his new book is called THE BRAVE.

Nicholas loves the American West and spent a lot of time during his childhood caught up in stories of cowboys and Indians. He loves old Westerns with their heroes seated high on horseback commanding their worlds from the saddle. I always find it amusing when we talk, and I hear his fabulous British accent describing with abject  enthusiasm these quintessential American icons. Nicholas has ridden and hiked and explored more of the West than most Americans, and his rich attachment to this part of the country infuses this book.

THE BRAVE is multi-layered and ambitiously crafted,  exploring the power of love, the haunting effect of family secrets and the bonds that tie people together. The book alternates between the past and the present, and the setting moves from a prep school in England to Hollywood and then to Montana. It is so original that it only could have been written by Nicholas Evans. I finished it and immediately pronounced it a Bets On selection. Saddle up and enjoy.