Tag: COlorado

The Hired Man by Sandra Dallas (Historical Literary Fiction)

A coming-of-age story for Martha Helen, a young woman growing up in Colorado in the 1930s amid the drought, dust bowl, and an ever increasing supply of vagrants. One day, in the middle of a huge dust storm, a vagrant (Otis Hobbs) stumbles to her family’s door with a half conscious boy he found buried in the dust. He becomes a room and board only “hired man” for the family, despite the ill will of many in the town. When a young girl is found murdered much later, the town is sure Otis is the perpetrator while Martha Helen’s family staunchly defends him.

Things don’t go the way you might expect — I won’t give anything away but I was happy that there was more to this story than the obvious. It’s a true coming-of-age, so we watch Martha Helen grow as more and more of the (not always pleasant or ethical) real world makes it into her awareness and eventually the composition of her adult self. In the process she reflects on loyalties, biases, good and evil, and understanding people as individuals. The town people really fell into “good” and “bad” categories, which normally feels shallow and manipulative to me. But in this case, you could see that those in the “good” category adhered to strongly held principles, while those in the “bad” category did not, either not having principles or literally not understanding when the crossed the line. It was particularly interesting to me to watch Martha Helen shift her understanding of individuals by watching what they actually did. Martha Helen put it well:

“For better or for worse, the drought and ill winds showed what we were made of. Some folks stole and cheated and hoarded. Others rose above the hardships and displayed strength and courage, even though it threatened to destroy them. The dust bowl changed us. Mr. Hobbs did too . During the time he lived with us, I grew up. I was barely more than a girl when he joined our family. By the time everything was over I was a woman.”

Good story, great characters, a real sense of place and time, all supported by writing that is so good and unobtrusive, you forget that you’re reading at all.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on March 31st, 2026.

Little Souls by Sandra Dallas (Historical Fiction)

Plot: 4.5/5 Characters: 4/5 Writing: 4/5

Little Souls takes place in Denver, 1918. The Influenza has hit the population badly, and the men are still away at war. At 19, Lutie Hite is a carefree artist working in advertising for the local department store; her older, more careworn, sister Helen is a nurse. Through an interesting set of events they become responsible for Dorothy, the ten-year old daughter of their now deceased tenant. From these beginnings follows a fairly wild, often heartbreaking, but ultimately heartwarming ride.

I’m a big Sandra Dallas fan. Dallas writes Western historical fiction about strong women making it through adversity with fortitude, intelligence, and the help of their community. She always brings in the small details of life in that particular time and place to make everything ring true.

Her stories tend to the dramatic, but never go over the top and feel quite realistic for their time. She is even-handed about how people thought and behaved at the time — different characters have different opinions on everything from mask-wearing (ha!) to personal morality, and no opinion is presented as obviously better than the others. Religious feeling and participation was a big part of life in that place and time, and I liked how she treated it. While this in no way dominates the book, there were some beautiful passages about how individual characters felt about God that moved me, despite my not being religious myself.

This is a real page-turner — I’m afraid I annoyed my husband by reading on into the night…

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on April 26th, 2022.

The Gifted School by Bruce Holsinger (Fiction)

Writing: 4/5 Plot: 4/5 Characters: 4/5

A surprisingly good read that explores the impact of a new and glittery School for the Gifted plonked down in a privileged Colorado enclave. Crystal Academy — with the best of intents — seems to draw out the worst in a set of parents who had until this point been perfectly happy with their children’s schooling. The book’s epigraph — penned by the author’s mother — sums it up nicely: “There is something so tantalizing about having a gifted child that some parents will go to almost any lengths to prove they have one.”

The story follows the four families associated with through the various stages: learning about the school, making the “first cut,” building up a case for “the whole child,” and on to the final cut. Emerging from the narrative are arguments for and against the venture, rants by parent’s whose children didn’t make the first cut, and the lengths parents go to — surprising even to those making them — to get their children in. Within the well detailed descriptions of the eight parents (and a brief description of a Quechuan family from the “wrong side of town” whose child is also under consideration) we are presented with a variety of ideas, worries, hopes, machinations, hypocrisy, entitlement, and interesting permutations on liberalism. Never boring and full of moral quandaries fascinating to the uninvolved bystander (me).

From a diversity viewpoint, it was interesting to me that the father characters were all a little sucky — weak or wildly irresponsible or perfect in every way … but dead. The wives were stronger, more interesting, and possessed decent cores, albeit cores that get derailed by the glittery object stressor. The (male) author gives only one of the parents a completely decent, honest, and calm personality: Azra — the only non-Caucasian in the group. I’m always interested in the underlying message here!

Fast, absorbing, read — I wasn’t able to empathize with all of the parents or the steps they took, and I disagree with *most* of the arguments pro and con the school. I’m a big, big, believer in gifted education, but mostly I wish we could educate each person in his/her own style, at her/his own pace, and with all the stimulation and support s/he needs.