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*WINNER! 2024 Oklahoma Book Award*

Stripped of opportunity by the Great Depression, educated and ambitious Liam takes a low-paying job with the Federal Writers’ Project, assigned to collect stories of rural life for the Library of Congress in a hot, poverty-stricken Dust Bowl town in Oklahoma. He’ ll take his government check, write the stories, and wait for better times. Then Liam meets a woman who upends all his plans.

Eden Sawyer may be poor, but she’ s hardworking and determined. She has dreams; more than that, she has talent. As Liam interviews her, he discovers that Eden longs to be an artist, and has the skill to do it, if only she can break the cycle of poverty that traps her.
Eden leads Liam to an unexpected, unimagined love. But as he interviews more townspeople, Liam’ s probing questions steer him into danger, threatening to reveal untold secrets, unsolved mysteries, and unfulfilled passions. Will one man’ s simmering jealousy and thwarted ambition bring Liam and Eden’ s story to an abrupt and deadly end?

Dr. Sheldon Russell, Professor Emeritus, is the author of fifteen books, including his award-winning historical fiction and his popular Hook Runyon mystery series. His books have garnered three Oklahoma Book Awards for Fiction, the Langum Prize for Historical Literature, and the Spur Award for Best Historical Western from the Western Writers of America. His books have earned starred reviews from both Booklist and Publishers Weekly. Russell is a graduate of Northwestern Oklahoma State University and Oklahoma State University. He currently lives on the family ranch in the beautiful Gloss Mountains of northwestern Oklahoma.