Native

by E. Compton Lee

At 24, Annie flees California to return to the Allegheny Mountains and to Clare whose feral ways are as protective as they are provocative. She settles near her friend’s home---an ancient community untroubled by modern law---where she ventures into the horse business. In doing so she naively brings together an incendiary mix of race and values. Dangerously optimistic she refuses to listen to Jack, the boy who travels between the Holler and Annie’s farm when he warns her, “people don’t give up their hates easy.” She continues to hang onto hope while houses burn, horses run wild and the sun blasts the land, turning it to tinder. It is Clare who finally teaches her that people are who they are; that wanting doesn’t always make it so and in accepting this there is a freedom.

216 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 14, 2014

Reviews

[Skylar · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book in one day. It’s probably more a 3.5. It’s a good, fast read. It touches on some difficult topics in an engaging way. It could be more developed but I also don’t think it has to be. Meaning the plot stands as it is, the characters stand as they are, but had the author wanted to make this a 300-400 page book I think it could’ve easily been possible.

The writing is good though. Honestly it’s a bit sad. But there is hope in it too. This is book one in a trilogy and I look forward to reading the other two some day. Though I was told by the author the books do all stand alone well too.

[Diane Bollinger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fast paced book set in the Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania follows a young woman who comes home from California to start a horse farm, leaving her cheating husband behind. There she finds friendship, prejudice, and stubborn mountain ways and how she deals with it all. Good beach read.