Sunny Gale by Jamie Lisa Forbes
Publisher: Pronghorn Press, (May, 2024)
Category: Historical Fiction, Western Fiction
Tour dates: August 5-Sept 20, 2024
ISBN: 978-1-941052-72-3
Available in Print and ebook, 340 pages
Description Sunny Gale by Jamie Lisa Forbes
When Hannah Brandt, who comes from a hardscrabble background in Ohio and Nebraska, first gets to ride a horse in 1895 at the age of 14, she realizes that there is no going back. . . Her destiny is to be a rodeo star and break new ground as a female bronco rider. She wins first place in a race at the Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeo at 18, and soon she’s known by a new name: Sunny Gale.
Her marriage to her first husband, Luke Mangum, ends in divorce and
she’s taken in by the Pickering clan, who are rodeo royalty. After she marries Tad Pickering, her star continues to rise as she and her spouse amaze crowds with “Roman Riding,” each of them standing astride two galloping horses.
When tragedy occurs, Sunny quits the clan and moves on. . . She finds a refuge in New Mexico with one-legged rancher Angus Laroche, who dispenses tough love. . . But her love life continues to be complicated, and the novel’s resolution sees her life come full circle, after a fashion.
This is a story of rodeos, marriages, sexism, and social mores—all churned together. . . A moving, memorable, and fully realized rodeo saga. Kirkus Reviews (starred)
Review Sunny Gale by Jamie Lisa Forbes
Guest Review by Mark
“She pushes herself up. Only remedy for the pain is caring for those animals. Abiding with them moment by moment gives her hope, makes her think that they will survive this winter together.”
Sunny Gale starts out life as Hannah Brandt, a curious, playful little girl who gets dealt a very bad hand by the universe. Hannah’s father dies when she is very young and, although her mother remarries, her new step-father quickly shows himself to be an emotionally abusive, hard-hearted man. Hannah soon realizes that she must find a way to provide for herself in this life, and she knows that she wants to use her love of horses to do that.
In 1895, in the hardscrabble world of rural Nebraska, Hannah only has one option, she decides that she must become a rodeo cowgirl. Although we readily associate the late 1800’s with rodeos and cowboys nowadays, the truth was that back then, that was a difficult field to get into. Particularly for a young woman.
Hannah changes her name to Sunny Gale, and marries the first boy that she ever speaks to outside of her family. The boy, Luke, was the first person to teach her to ride a horse, but, when she announces that she wishes to go into the rodeo, Luke is her biggest detractor. He hates the idea of his wife earning her own living in this way and discourages her constantly. Eventually, they divorce (another huge no-no in those times) and Hannah realizes that if she wishes to follow her dreams, she will have to do so on her own.
I could not put this well-researched novel down the whole time I was reading. This is truly a one-of-a-kind novel, and one that I will be thinking about for a long time to come! I always told my daughter when she was growing up that she can do anything. There is no such thing as “men’s work and women’s work.” She is a firefighter.
About Jamie Lisa Forbes
Award winning author, Jamie Lisa Forbes was raised on a ranch in the Little Laramie Valley near Laramie, Wyoming. She attended the University of Colorado where she obtained degrees in English and philosophy. After fourteen months living in Israel, she returned to her family’s ranch where she lived for another fifteen years.
In 1994, she moved to Greensboro, North Carolina. In 2001, she graduated from the University of North Carolina School of Law and began her North Carolina law practice.
Her first novel, Unbroken, won the WILLA Literary Award for Contemporary Fiction in 2011. Her collection of short stories, The Widow Smalls and Other Stories, won the High Plains Book Awards for a short story collection in 2015.
Her novel about life in rural North Carolina entitled Eden was published in 2020.
Ms. Forbes continues to live—and write—in North Carolina
Website: https://www.jamielisaforbes.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Jamielisaforbes
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JamieLisaForbes
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/jamielisaforbes/
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