About this item
A novel of love in all its forms: for the land, for family, and the once-in-a-lifetime kind that catches two people when they least expect itEmmy is a shy, sheltered sixteen-year-old when her mom, Kate, sends her to eastern Washington to an aunt and uncle she never knew she had. Fifteen years earlier, Kate hadabandoned her sister, Beth, when she fled her painful past and their fundamentalist church. And now, Beth believes Emmy's participation in a faith healing is her last hope for having a child.Emmy goes reluctantly, but before long she knows she has come home. She feels tied to the rugged landscape of coulees and scablands. And she meets Reuben, the Native American boy next door.In a part of the country where the age-old tensions of cowboys versus Indians still play out, theirs is the kind of magical, fraught love that can only survive with the passion and resilience of youth.
About the Author
I grew up in a small farming town in eastern Washington, located between the two largest Indian reservations in the state. My family has deep roots in the Pacific Northwest, and I remember my grandmother telling stories of how the Snake River used to flood their house every spring. For much of my childhood, my parents were members of a fundamentalist Baptist church where I attended school in an unaccredited basement academy. I have worked as a truck stop waitress and as a teacher. I've won multiple awards from Narrative Magazine, including first place in the Fall 2010 Story Contest. Four of my short stories can be found online at Narrative. Leslie Marmon Silko chose a story by me to win the Kore Press Short Fiction Chapbook Award. I have also won writing awards from The Atlantic Monthly and The Chicago Tribune, as well as other places. One of my stories was picked as a notable story in the Best American Short Stories 2010. Steal the North is my debut novel and first published book. I currently live in the Sacramento Valley with my husband and two children. I return often to the Pacific Northwest to visit the rivers and to feel the wind in the canyons and coulees.
