Editorial Content for Daredevils
Book
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
Alex Bowditch
Shawn Vestal, the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize-winning author of the short story collection GODFORSAKEN IDAHO, once again discovers life in the bleakness of the American Midwest with his novel DAREDEVILS. The book begins in the summer of 1974 in Short Creek, Arizona, where 15-year-old Loretta rebels against her fundamentalist Mormon community by sneaking out at night with her Gentile boyfriend, Bradshaw. She is tired of Bradshaw and his pressuring her to sleep with him, but continues to see him because she views him as a potential means of escape. Read More
Teaser
Fifteen-year-old Loretta slips out of her bedroom every evening to meet her so-called gentile boyfriend. Her strict Mormon parents catch her returning one night, and promptly marry her off to Dean Harder, a devout yet materialistic fundamentalist who already has a wife and a brood of kids. The Harders relocate to his native Idaho, where Dean’s teenage nephew Jason falls hard for Loretta. A Zeppelin and Tolkien fan, Jason worships Evel Knievel and longs to leave his close-minded community. When he and Loretta finally make a break for it, someone Loretta left behind is on their trail.
Promo
Fifteen-year-old Loretta slips out of her bedroom every evening to meet her so-called gentile boyfriend. Her strict Mormon parents catch her returning one night, and promptly marry her off to Dean Harder, a devout yet materialistic fundamentalist who already has a wife and a brood of kids. The Harders relocate to his native Idaho, where Dean’s teenage nephew Jason falls hard for Loretta. A Zeppelin and Tolkien fan, Jason worships Evel Knievel and longs to leave his close-minded community. When he and Loretta finally make a break for it, someone Loretta left behind is on their trail.
About the Book
From the winner of 2014’s PEN Robert W. Bingham Prize, an unforgettable debut novel about Loretta, a teenager married off as a “sister wife,” who makes a break for freedom.
At the heart of this exciting debut novel, set in Arizona and Idaho in the mid-1970s, is 15-year-old Loretta, who slips out of her bedroom every evening to meet her so-called gentile boyfriend. Her strict Mormon parents catch her returning one night, and promptly marry her off to Dean Harder, a devout yet materialistic fundamentalist who already has a wife and a brood of kids. The Harders relocate to his native Idaho, where Dean’s teenage nephew Jason falls hard for Loretta. A Zeppelin and Tolkien fan, Jason worships Evel Knievel and longs to leave his close-minded community. He and Loretta make a break for it. They drive all night, stay in hotels, and relish their dizzying burst of teenage freedom as they seek to recover Dean’s cache of “Mormon gold.” But someone Loretta left behind is on their trail...
A riveting story of desire and escape, DAREDEVILS boasts memorable set pieces and a rich cast of secondary characters. There’s Dean’s other wife, Ruth, who as a child in the 1950s was separated from her parents during the notorious Short Creek raid, when federal agents descended on a Mormon fundamentalist community. There’s Jason’s best friend, Boyd, part Native American and caught up in the activist spirit of the time, who comes along for the ride, with disastrous results. And Vestal’s ultimate creation is a superbly sleazy chatterbox --- a man who might or might not be Evel Knievel himself --- who works his charms on Loretta at a casino in Elko, Nevada.
A lifelong journalist whose Spokesman column is a fixture in Spokane, WA, Shawn has honed his fiction over many years, publishing in journals like McSweeney's and Tin House. His stunning first collection, GODFORSAKEN IDAHO, burrowed into history as it engaged with masculinity and crime, faith and apostasy, and the West that he knows so well. Daredevils shows what he can do on a broader canvas --- a fascinating, wide-angle portrait of a time and place that's both a classic coming of age tale and a plunge into the myths of America, sacred and profane.
Audiobook available, narrated by Rick Holmes
Editorial Content for Daughter of Albion: A Novel of Ancient Britain
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
Carly Silver
Debut author Ilka Tampke visits Ancient Britain and the Roman invasion in DAUGHTER OF ALBION. Though this historical fantasy features an engaging romance, it ultimately proves lackluster when Tampke tries too hard to make mysticism happen. Read More
Teaser
A baby girl is abandoned on the doorstep of the Tribequeen’s kitchen. Cookmother takes her in and names her Ailia. Despite being an outsider in her village, Ailia grows up an intelligent and brave young woman, serving the Tribequeen of her township until the day when an encounter with an enigmatic man named Taliesin leads Ailia to the Mothers, the tribal ancestors, who have chosen her for another path. Ailia’s growing awareness of her future role as the tribal protector and her relationships with the two very different men she loves will be utterly tested by the imminent threat of Emperor Claudius preparing to take the island.
Promo
A baby girl is abandoned on the doorstep of the Tribequeen’s kitchen. Cookmother takes her in and names her Ailia. Despite being an outsider in her village, Ailia grows up an intelligent and brave young woman, serving the Tribequeen of her township until the day when an encounter with an enigmatic man named Taliesin leads Ailia to the Mothers, the tribal ancestors, who have chosen her for another path. Ailia’s growing awareness of her future role as the tribal protector and her relationships with the two very different men she loves will be utterly tested by the imminent threat of Emperor Claudius preparing to take the island.
About the Book
Set in Ancient Britain on the cusp of Roman invasion, Ilka Tampke's DAUGHTER OF ALBION is a mesmerizing novel about the collision of two worlds and a young woman torn between two men.
DAUGHTER OF ALBION transports the reader to the village of Caer Cad in southwest Britain, AD 43, where the dark cloud of the Roman Empire is gathering on the horizon.
A baby girl is abandoned on the doorstep of the Tribequeen’s kitchen. Cookmother takes her in and names her Ailia. Without family, Ailia is an outsider in her village, forbidden from marriage and excluded from learning. Despite this, she grows up an intelligent and brave young woman, serving the Tribequeen of her township until the day when an encounter with an enigmatic man named Taliesin leads Ailia to the Mothers, the tribal ancestors, who have chosen her for another path.
Ailia’s growing awareness of her future role as the tribal protector and her relationships with the two very different men she loves will be utterly tested by the imminent threat of Emperor Claudius preparing to take the island.
With an incredibly compelling heroine, DAUGHTER OF ALBION is a suspenseful and richly rewarding novel about women, about power, about love, and about the clash of cultures and the tenacity of belief.
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May 6, 2016, 143 voters
Although Mary Volmer and her mother experienced vastly different childhoods, they have one sure thing in common: a deep and abiding passion for reading. Her mother grew up roaming the American West, the daughter of ranch workers, who stopped moving in order to have a family and a home of her own. But even though she’ll never know the girl her mother once was, Mary never stops searching for her in the books she loves. Mary’s latest book, RELIANCE, ILLINOIS --- set in the late 19th century, the story of a girl marked since birth, who finds her place in the world as the aide to a brilliant suffragette --- is now available.
