20191006_184136.jpgToday I have a review of One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow by Olivia Hawker, now available from Amazon Publishing.

A big thank you to Kathleen Carter for the complimentary copy.

My Thoughts:

I’ve always loved historical fiction set in the pioneering western US. One for the Blackbird is set in Wyoming in 1870.

The Bemis and Webber families rely on each other for survival. There’s no one else around, so they need each other. Ernest finds his wife, Cora, cheating with their neighbor, and now, Ernest is in prison with the two women left to survive on their own.

Of course, Cora and Nettie Mae have unsettled feelings between them, but when winter comes, they are forced together to tend the land and care for their children.

Two of their children are teenagers, though, and they fall in love. This relationship tests the women further.

Olivia Hawker’s writing is beautifully descriptive of the land and its people. I love that the story was loosely inspired by her own family. I adored these two families and the strong women.

One for the Blackbird is a tender story of forgiveness with the hard prairie life as a backdrop. I enjoyed every bit of it.

I received a complimentary copy. All opinions are my own.

About the Book:

From the bestselling author of The Ragged Edge of Night comes a powerful and poetic novel of survival and sacrifice on the American frontier.

Wyoming, 1870. For as long as they have lived on the frontier, the Bemis and Webber families have relied on each other. With no other settlers for miles, it is a matter of survival. But when Ernest Bemis finds his wife, Cora, in a compromising situation with their neighbor, he doesn’t think of survival. In one impulsive moment, a man is dead, Ernest is off to prison, and the women left behind are divided by rage and remorse.

Losing her husband to Cora’s indiscretion is another hardship for stoic Nettie Mae. But as a brutal Wyoming winter bears down, Cora and Nettie Mae have no choice but to come together as one family—to share the duties of working the land and raising their children. There’s Nettie Mae’s son, Clyde—no longer a boy, but not yet a man—who must navigate the road to adulthood without a father to guide him, and Cora’s daughter, Beulah, who is as wild and untamable as her prairie home.

Bound by the uncommon threads in their lives and the challenges that lie ahead, Cora and Nettie Mae begin to forge an unexpected sisterhood. But when a love blossoms between Clyde and Beulah, bonds are once again tested, and these two resilient women must finally decide whether they can learn to trust each other—or else risk losing everything they hold dear.

Have you read One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow, or is it on your TBR? Happy Reading! ~ Jennifer THR