Author: Chris Whitaker
Year published: 2021
Category: Adult fiction
Pages: 384 pages
Rating: 4 out of 5
Location: (my 2024 Google Reading map): USA (CA, MT, WY)
Summary: Right. Wrong. Life is lived somewhere in between.
Duchess Day Radley is a thirteen-year-old self-proclaimed outlaw. Rules are for other people. She is the fierce protector of her five-year-old brother, Robin, and the parent to her mother, Star, a single mom incapable of taking care of herself, let alone her two kids.
Walk has never left the coastal California town where he and Star grew up. He may have become the chief of police, but he’s still trying to heal the old wound of having given the testimony that sent his best friend, Vincent King, to prison decades before. And he's in overdrive protecting Duchess and her brother.
Now, thirty years later, Vincent is being released. And Duchess and Walk must face the trouble that comes with his return.
Review: I kept hearing really good things about this book so finally got around to reading it. I am so glad!
The characters in this book are downtrodden, I can't think of another word that describes them. They are poor, living in an isolated small rundown town that is not helping them. The whole town shares in the tragedy that begins this novel, the death of a young girl. Even though it's been thirty years, the town and its citizens don't seem able to move on. They are stuck where they are, not growing or changing.
Walk is hiding a disease from his friends and the town. Duchess is so busy being "an outlaw" that she doesn't allow herself to experience all that life has to offer. And Robin is just scared, glad he has Duchess to protect him. He just wants a home that is safe and happy.
There is a lot of death and sadness in this novel, I think that's why it took me quite a while to get through it. It's not a novel to rush through, but one to take in bits, to digest, and then to move on. It is suspenseful, harrowing, and heavy. Have you read this one? What did you think?
Challenges for which this counts:
- Literary Escapes--Wyoming
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