Thirty years of browbeating from rancher Bud Smalls has penned his wife, Leah, into emotional isolation. Now Bud is gone and Leah owns the ranch, but no help is forthcoming from Bud's brothers who want to force her out and take the ranch for themselves. When their attempt to humiliate her instead becomes her opportunity to make her ranch succeed, Leah begins to find her way back to herself and learns how much she can gain by opening her heart.
The Widow Smalls is just of one of the stories in this award-winning collection by the WILLA Award winning author of Unbroken, Jamie Lisa Forbes, who writes from her experience about the hardships of making a life on the land. Her deftly drawn characters include star-crossed lovers, a young rancher facing his first test of moral courage, an inscrutable ranch hand claiming a famous relative, a father making one last grasp for his favorite daughter's love and a child's struggle to make sense of the world around her. Each one of these characters will pull readers into the middle of their stories and keep them turning the pages.
Winner High Plains Book Award--short stories--2015