Leaving Whiskey Bend - Softcover

Garlock, Dorothy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0446695343 ISBN 13: 9780446695343

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing, 2008

Synopsis

The new novel from the Voice of America's Heartland, Dorothy Garlock.
In l890 two friends, middle-aged Pearl and pretty, young schoolteacher Hallie, have just about decided to leave the rough Western town of Whiskey Bend, where both are disillusioned with the way they have been treated. The final straw comes when they witness their friend Mary being assaulted in the street by her stepbrother Chester and no one steps forward to help her. They decide to leave and take Mary with them. They go out to the shack where Chester and Mary live to get her, but when Chester attacks them, Pearl shoots him in the leg. He screams after the three that he will follow them wherever they go. Desperately they drive away in an open wagon seeking a new life and safety. One night along the way they are caught in a violent storm and Mary nearly drowns in a roiling river. She is saved by a daring young rancher who brings them back to his home to stay until Mary recovers. The rancher has troubles of his own. He is condemned by his mother for having left his father to run the ranch alone years earlier. He is searching for the murderer of his younger brother. And someone now is trying to kill him. Attracted to him and grateful, Hallie vows to help him.

About this title

About the Author

Dorothy Garlock is the author of over 50 novels that have sold over 15 million copies and are published in 15 languages. She lives in Iowa.

From Publishers Weekly

Garlock's newest (after On Tall Pine Lake) feels old, and not just because it's set in 1890. Schoolteacher Hallie Wolcott flees Whiskey Bend, Colo., with her friends Pearl and Mary after Mary is beaten by Chester, one of the town's many brutes. Pearl, the eldest, has been through this before, and she won't rest until they find a place that feels safe. Fortunately, a powerful storm leaves them washed up at tumbledown ranch owned by Eli Morgan. Eli's cantankerous and cruel mother wants no part of the women, but she begrudgingly changes her mind when an accident lands her in bed. Meanwhile, Chester's been tracking the ladies; will he find them at the ranch, the place where each woman feels she can finally find true happiness? The answer to this and other cliffhangers are apparent to the reader long before the resolutions are played out on the page. The prose is lifeless, the dialogue wooden and the whole thing reads like a poorly strung-together mishmash of western romance tropes. (Nov.)
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About this edition

• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0446695343
• ISBN 13: 9780446695343
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 355