The Unplowed Sky

by Jeanne Williams Narrated by Stephanie Brush

Overview

It's 1924, and times are tough throughout the Midwest. Tougher even for nineteen year old Hallie Meredith.  Totally on her own and with a younger brother to care for, she is desperately in need of a job. She left her last job with rich, Quentin Raford when his unwelcome romantic overtures became unbearable.

When Garth Macleod offers her a job as cook with his threshing outfit she jumps at it and finds a home with his nomadic outfit. They travel from farm to farm threshing wheat for farmers from miles around. But her security is short-lived when Raford decides he wants to put Macleod's outfit out of business.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Williams (Daughter of the Storm) should widen her audience with her latest western romance, which boasts a realistic plot, sound characterization and effective use of historical detail. The Midwest wheat fields that cover the no longer unbounded prairie of the early part of the century are the backdrop for this tale of 19-year-old Hallie Meredith and her five-year-old half-brother Jackie, as she seeks work and shelter after being propositioned by her slimy employer. The siblings are haunted by experiences of abandonment: Hallie was bereft when her widowed father married a second wife, Felicity, and his death was the final blow. Felicity now has left Jackie with Hallie so she can remarry. A brighter future beckons when threshers Garth and Rory MacLeod hire Hallie as cookhouse help. But a crippling accident, dirty politics, complex rivalries and other circumstances threaten the threshing business as well as Garth and Hallie's budding love. Though hampered by an abrupt ending, this story of the simple pleasures and harsh realities of farm life is raised above formula by its winning depiction of a more innocent time. (Nov.)

Library Journal

Part historical and part romance, this novel of life on the Kansas prairie in the 1920s follows Hallie Meredith's 19th year. Left to care for her abandoned five-year-old brother, Hallie joins the MacLeod threshing outfit as cook. The crew becomes their family, and Hallie is drawn to the two MacLeod brothers, outgoing Rory and enigmatic Garth. Times are tough for the MacLeods, who are forced to struggle against the land and the growing political clout of enemy Quentin Raford. Raford, who manages to gain control of most of the area's farms and businesses, tries to put the MacLeods out of business. Williams (The Longest Road, St. Martin's, 1993) paints the Kansas landscape vividly; she also describes the prejudices and politics of the time, although somewhat more pedantically. An enjoyable story for light fiction collections.-M. Janet Simmons, Duluth P.L., Minn.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169813005
Publisher:	Books in Motion
Publication date:	02/15/2010
Edition description:	Unabridged

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