I really enjoyed this short read, available by joining the author’s mailing list. I believe this is the last thing this author has written, though it isn’t published, and that makes me sad. I hope she is well and continuing to explore her themes of hardship and love on the western frontier.
This novella is a well balanced story that had similar themes to many of her other books. I think my only issue with it is that it focussed quite a bit on herding cattle and not enough on redemption and justice for Edie and the wrongs done to her by the town. She experienced much grief and hardship in her life but none of that was explored to its fullest. Must be a novella thing, but I think it might be better if some of the hardships were removed rather than lacking depth. Loss of a child is huge and I felt it was glossed over. Thats not the kind of grief a person ever recovers from and I think it was unnecessary to even include it in the book.
But fans of O’Connell will enjoy this as it feels like a short version of beautiful bad man.