Montana Books

Anne Eames, please don't let this be the end of the "Montana Malones". This last book in the trilogy was absolutely wonderful. I laughed, and cried, and actually stood up and cheered in parts. You made Josh and Taylor so real, I was absolutely mesmerized by their saga. Truly a work of art.

I loved this book! It grabbed my attention and wouldn't let go. It's written in a way that you actually feel like you're living the book. The characters become friends . . . you laugh and cry with them. I really didn't want to see it come to an end!

"I hate it when them places go," said Madeline. "All the stories are gone, too." Peter Bowen does a masterful keeping the stories from going. Du Pre, his beautiful lover Madeline, family and friends Metis, descendents of French voyageurs and their Indian wives, in the mean damn Montana Du Pre loves. This one is of retribution, of old families, of honor, of Du Pre's fiddle and the old songs, of a youngster wanting Du Pre to extend to her the torch of musical raconteur, of FBI agents stuffy and zany.

Find a youngster and start him/her on this for a little-known era of history, of local color, of excellent writing about a beloved subject. The child will bless you for it.

And aren't books for sharing as well as loving? You were born to make the world a better place. Here's one way to do it.

When I first saw this book, I groaned. Not because of the title, or the subject, or the author -- I wasn't familiar with any of the above. I groaned because it was an assigned text for the African American Literature class in which I was enrolled. The book is, frankly, huge -- and size is much more daunting to our modern 20th/21st century eyes than it was to our predecessors. The reason for its immense number of pages, however, is that it is three novels bound into one edition -- and to my greater surprise, I was floored by the two I was assigned to read: "Hagar's Daughter" and "Of One Blood".

Pauline Hopkins wrote these stories, as well as the middle one, "Winona", not to be published all at once, but as serial installments in 'Colored American Magazine' 1901-1903. Having never before read stories written for such format, I was amazed by the rich complexity of each plot. Very rarely can I say that "I *never* saw that coming" when reading a novel. Usually there is some hint of plot that we can follow, however intricately-wrought, perhaps because we have seen so very many stories. These stories, however -- like fabled Shaharazad tales of the 'Arabian Nights' -- depended upon keeping the readers hooked on every word, every 'cliff-hanger' that ended a section of chapters. And Hopkins succeeded incredibly well!

While the end of "Hagar's Daughter" is a little too pat (again, perhaps for these jaded late-20th century eyes), the entirety of the novel keeps you dangling expertly in suspense, at some points practically chewing your nails because you desperately want to see HOW the "hero" or "heroine" are going to escape each predicament. The same is true of "Of One Blood," although that story goes even further by introducing near-fanastical elements of mysticism, as well as mystery. Hopkins delves deeply and with tremendous talent and effect into the 'race problem' of the late 19th and early 20th century -- namely, the treatment and self-perception of people of African descent, especially when also of Anglo descent. These issues are often intrinsic to the plot, but they do not overwhelm the plot -- or, more often, multiple plots -- even as they wrap the audience closer and closer to each character and its dilemma.

The Magazine Novels are a collection I will not soon let out of my grasp -- and I will be eternally grateful to the foresight of the professor here at Tulane University for assigning the text. For all the daunting thickness of the book, the language and the stories are well worth an investment of time and money. Hopkins was a true master of the art of fiction, character-development, and driving (and meshing) plot-lines.

This is a contemperary romance worthy of reading - it has a bit of a mystery - or held back information that tantalizes.
Why did Rachel Brant's father, a man who seemed to have no love left after his wife died, send her on the trail of a cover-up in the Vietnam war?
Could finishing the article make her father love her?

Thirty seven year old Ash McKee didn't want Rachel upsetting his step-dad, Tom by stirring up memories of NAM that he has buried for 36 years.

Tom McKee slowly comes to the conclusion that it was time to face the hole in his life and maybe help Ash let go of the trauma of losing his wife of 17 years.

Both Tom and Ash recognized that Charlie needed a man in his life. And Rachel began to help Daisy with her ambitions to write as a journalist and to soften Ash's attitude toward writers.

There was the incident of where Rachel helped to save Ash from serious injury strengthening her feelings of usefullness and where Ash disciplined Charlie for not following the rules in the cattle barn. After Rachel called Ash to account - he handled Charlie with compassion.

Two wounded people were slowly falling in love [hah! they still hopped into bed, with no commitment] Almost to the end she was determined to leave. I had to chuckle when I read the reasons behind Tom's silence and Brant's nastiness. Loved the outcome.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED --M - for a contemp. Loved learning about the ranch life in rugged Montana.

This in the introduction of another character that has lived in Whitehorn for about nine years: Jonas Bishop.
He is mysterious, a bit, and reclusive.

Elizabeth Monroe is sent to Whitehorn, an investigative reporter, to run a story on the kidnapping [or disappearance of] little Jennifer McCallum.

Jonas doesn't want anything to do with any reporters, they will just try to dig up his past. Well here we have another secret.

Clint Calloway is one of the police detectives of Whitehorn. He has been given the case of the missing child. [can I slip in here that he is one of Jeremiah Kincaid's illigitamate children?]
Elizabeth found this out when she "borrowed" some journals from the library. They were written by Jeremiah's first wife.

Finally the DNA came back on the woman that was killed in Nick Dean's truck explosion. Marie March was 24 and possibly coming back for her child, Jennifer. DNA also proved the little girl was Jeremiah's child.

How had little Jennifer disappeared from the library at or soon after Mary Jo Kincaid's story-telling time? No one saw a thing.
Mary Jo had to contend with all the questions that Elizabeth was asking and stirring up curiosity of the Whitehorn inhabitants.

Of course the big problem between Jonas and Elizabeth [after she moved in with him] was their attraction [yup! into bed they hopped] and his distrust of her. [dingbats can't control their hormones].

Vicky Lewis Thompson keeps you glued to the pages. Unable to put the book down. The scenes awaken a passion in the reader that is scandalously hot. I felt I was right there with the characters all of the time, rooting for them to come together(permanently). Tortureously sizzling hot read. Excellent.

Excellent international service, book delivered in just over a week to UK and in pristine condition. Great service

This story was funny in places, and heart wrenching in others. I found it completely entertaining. I couldn't put it down. I fell in love with little Billy, as well as Ryder, the hero of this book. Anne Eames performs magic on her characters. She breathes life into them, you feel with them, love them, and cry for them. She is an outstanding author.

In the current miasmic atmosphere in public affairs created by the corrupting trinity of big money, indiscriminate television and instant opinion polls, it is salutary to recall those who have lent honor and distinction to public service by honest and relentless pursuit of the common good as they saw it. John and Catherine Morrison have provided such retrospect with their literary pantheon of remarkable Montanans titled "Mavericks," now published by the University of Idaho Press.

The lives, times, vicissitudes, triumphs and tragedies of nine leading actors in the drama of this state's first century are skillfully and accurately delineated in a single volume that is a handbook on our public affairs. Which is not to say that it even pretends to be objective. The authors are unabashed admirers of the Josephs Dixon and Toole, Ella Knowles and Jeannette Rankin, Tom Walsh and B.K. Wheeler, and Jim Murray, Mike Mansfield and Lee Metcalf, as far seeing, fearless progressives. This carefully researched and well organized book is at its best an insightful examination of Montana's populist-progressive tradition as illuminated by these players.

The list does not include Pat Williams, who sustained the tradition in the House of Representatives for 18 years without flinching. In his concise forward though, Williams adumbrates the Morrison's central theme, "...the golden thread of courage." These men and women were as diverse in their backgrounds, personalities, predilictions, and modus operendi as they could possibly be, yet they had one thing in common: when the chips were down and the issue really mattered, their convictions came first and they did the best they could with the rest of it.

The concluding paragraphs are the most intriguing in the book. The authors are relatively young and have not been prominent in public affairs. Yet their six page conclusion is as piercing and enlightened a statement on the state of the state and its future as we've seen. It is informed with an extraordinary sense of the importance, on the one hand, of leadership on the part of elected officials, but, on the other hand, the equal and ever more urgent importance of participation on the part of all of us. Well and deeply considered and elegently written, these few paragraphs are a much needed orientation as to where we are now and a beacon to the future.