READ THIS: Old Border Road By Susan Froderberg

Katherine is 17, living alone in the beautiful, desolate landscape of southern Arizona. Her mother is feckless, her father busy with his new family. Meeting Son, the scion of a local rancher, seems like deliverance. They marry and live as a family in his parents' venerable adobe house, but it soon becomes clear that Son is a man who, as his father says, has a "young heart near withered beneath the breastbone."

Katherine must find her own way during a dangerous months-long drought, when everything seems to be disintegrating around her. Susan Froderberg's incantatory language--and her deep knowledge of both the complexities of a small, deeply-rooted place and the human heart--make OLD BORDER ROAD soar.

If you are looking for a quick afternoon read, Old Border Road, by Susan Froderberg, is not for you.  This is no soda pop, quick snack, novel.  Froderberg's tale of a young teen bride's life in the desert landscape of Arizona, is a rich and luscious experience, to be savored over time.  Some pages can be read, and even re-read, before the full weight of their text can be appreciated.  Her use of language sets Froderberg apart from most authors, in an age where it seems anyone and everyone is being published.  Even if, at times, it can seem a bit cumbersome, the protagonist's  voice creates such a unique person in the reader's mind that one could not imagine changing a single word without forever changing the character.  Impressive, especially for a first novel, Susan Froderberg's Old Border Road is another winner from Hachette Book Group.

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