#westernfiction – Rosepoint Publishing

News of the World: A Novel by Paulette Jiles #AudiobookReview #bookclubs #TBT

Editors’ pick Best Literature & Fiction

Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Readers’ Favorite Historical Fiction (2016)

My participation with The Y Book Club in our local area has been a lot of fun. Their August selection was News of the World which I discovered was also turned into a major motion picture with Tom Hanks in the lead role. I am anxious for that movie to come to Netflix.

The book club meets once a month and is very popular. Members are limited as to the number of physical books they can get for book clubs. Fortunately, I do audiobooks. The moderator does a great job keeping us to book club questions.

My Thoughts:

Quickly acknowledged that the book had been made into a movie starring Tom Hanks, the ladies in the Y Book Club who had seen the movie agreed it was excellent. I can’t wait to see it, as I disagreed that the book was excellent. Oh, yes, it was good, and not to say I didn’t enjoy it. Short, descriptive, chock full of historical majesty, from bandits to Native Americans, it’s a feast for the ears.

Yes, I listened to the audiobook narrated by one of my favorite narrators, Grover Gardner, who better to read the book whose setting is 1870 in Texas? The Civil War has officially ended, but not for Texas. (Tom Hanks, by the way, narrated The Dutch House by Ann Patchett.)

Extensive research went into this novel, no question. Questions arose regarding those children who had been captured by Native Americans, which led to additional research on my part and also contributed to lively discussion among the book club members.

As the ten-year-old Johanna and Captain Kidd travel the distance from Witchita Falls to San Antonio to return the girl to an aunt and uncle she doesn’t remember, they confront the extent of a lawless society that post-war chaos can offer. Johanna is rooted in the Kiowa language and spiritual traditions. She remembers nothing of her life prior to her capture at age six and thinks and acts as a Kiowa. Furthermore, she wants nothing to do with white society. It becomes apparent, however, that she is very clever.

Captain Kidd has managed to survive three wars, earning him the status of Captain, and has a reputation for being a strong, level-headed, and astute man, trustworthy in all endeavors. He is a widower whose payment will be sufficient to bring his two daughters from the east to live with him. He earns his living now by reading pertinent news articles to a paid audience from various papers as he wanders the countryside.

I thoroughly enjoyed the story through to the epilogue. Then the reader is suddenly fed the future of the characters in large clumps of sequel material that would have created another satisfying story—rather than the crushing end to this otherwise beautifully written narrative with powerful characters.

Many thanks to my local library for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book. The thoughts expressed here are my own.

Book Club Thoughts

The members found a lot of grist for lively discussion as usual. Although short at just a little over 200 pages or less than 7 hours audiobook narration, the storyline packed an emotional wallop that left an indelible imprint on many of the ladies. Again, another reason so many of us are fascinated with historical fiction books is the revelation of a great deal of factual info and eye-opening material that most of us were unaware.

Book Club star rating vote

Book Details:

Genre: Westerns, Western Fiction, Historical Fiction
Publisher: HarperAudio
Narrator: Grover Gardner
Listening Length: 6 hrs 42 mins
ASIN: B084JJ9K3J
Release Date: August 25, 2020
Source: Local Library

Title Link(s):

Amazon-US | Amazon-UK | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

The Author: My website is paulettejiles.com. I review books and say shocking things and include outrageous pictures.

Paulette Jiles was born in Salem, Missouri, in the Missouri Ozarks. Raised in small towns in both south and central Missouri, she attended three different high schools, an exhausting process of social dislocation and fashion wobbles, and with relief graduated from the University of Missouri (KC) in Romance Languages. After graduation she worked for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Toronto and in the far north of Ontario and in the Quebec Arctic, helping to set up village one-watt FM radio stations in the native language, Anishinabe and Inuktitut. She became reasonably conversant in Anishinabe but Inuktitut was just too much. Very hard. Besides she was only in the eastern Arctic for a year. Work in the north lasted about ten years all told.

She taught at David Thompson University in Nelson B.C. and grew to love the British Columbian ecosystems and general zaniness. She spent one year as a writer-in-residence at Philips Andover in Massachusetts and then returned to the United States permanently when she married Jim Johnson, a Texan. Has lived in Texas since 1995.

She and her husband renovated an old stone house in the San Antonio historic district and amidst the rubble and stonemasons and ripped-out electrical systems she completed Enemy Women. She now lives on a small ranch near a very small town in the Texas Hill Country with a horse and a donkey. If you want a free donkey, please let her know. She plays Irish tin whistle with a bluegrass group, sings alto in choir, rides remote trails in Texas with friends. Her horse is named Buck. News of the World (William Morrow) was a finalist for the National Book Award.

©V Williams

Book Club — AI generated graphic courtesy Gemini 2.5 Flash

Down Range by Taylor Moore – #AudiobookReview – #ThrowbackThursday

Garrett Kohl #1

Book Blurb:

In this action-packed debut thriller for fans of C. J. Box and Jack Carr, DEA agent Garrett Kohl fights to protect his home on the Texas High Plains when a vicious criminal enterprise comes after his family.

As a decorated undercover DEA special agent, Garrett Kohl has traveled the world – and fought in most of it – but it’s the High Plains of northwest Texas he calls home and dreams of returning to one day. Kohl is in the middle of an assignment in Afghanistan when his commander orders him back to Texas on a short mission expected to take a week at most. But Kohl is unsettled to discover that he’s moving from one kind of war to another.

The once-peaceful ranching community he loves is under attack by a band of criminals who have infiltrated law enforcement and corrupted local businesses, and are now terrorizing Kohl’s own family. Hoping to prevent bloodshed, Kohl tries to resolve matters peacefully. But when the group strikes first, he has no choice but to go on the attack.

Unfortunately for the crew of criminals, Garrett Kohl, besides being an elite undercover officer for the DEA, is a battle-hardened Green Beret who spent the better part of his career hunting terrorists. Although outnumbered and outgunned, Kohl knows the wild and forsaken Llano Estacado region of Texas better than anyone. And like so many trespassers before them, these murderers will find out the hard way that the only thing tougher than this land is the people who call it home.

My Review:

Alright! This book is supposed to appeal to fans of C J Box and I’ve read-listened to CJ and enjoyed his books. But no, I’m not sure you can compare it to C J Box. This author has a writing style all his own and engaging characters with a somewhat more charismatic appeal.

Down Range is the first in a new series but for a debut, it makes quite a wallop. Action thriller from the beginning with a scene in which former Green Beret undercover DEA Special Agent Garret Kohl discovers he is witnessing a massacre in Afghanistan. Totally unexpected is a ten-year-old boy, Asadi, running for his life out of the village with no chance to escape. Kohl steps in and manages to save the boy but runs the risk of getting himself in serious trouble for blowing his cover and the investigation.

It’s determined both will be sent home and Agent Kohl is now charged with keeping the boy alive as the only possible witness.

I loved the road trip to his dad’s ranch in the Panhandle of Texas. Descriptions of the area border on poetic prose and there are fascinating histories gracefully interwoven with tender moments of bonding between the boy and Kohl.

Kohl’s irascible dad seems to take a paternal interest in Asadi and it isn’t long before Asadi is relaxing into the dream of America, the land, the wide open spaces, food, and the animals. Asadi particularly loves the horses and quickly determines a favorite.

Unfortunately, Texas takes a dark turn in the second half of the book when they bump up against the local narcotics trade. Of course, they don’t realize they are up against a former Green Beret who has seen his share of action and knows how to handle them. Sometimes though you feel sorry for poor Asadi caught in the middle who it seems to have jumped from the opium trade in Afghanistan to the local Texas drug trade.

I enjoyed the characters, loved Asadi and Kohl’s dad, his brother (an attorney) and a maybe romantic interest. It’s a well-plotted, fast-paced book that got the characters developed while keeping the action ball in the air which was non-stop.

I downloaded a copy of this audiobook from my local well-stocked library. These are my honest thoughts. This will be a fun series and this one quite the immersive narrative whether or not you think you don’t like contemporary Western fiction.

Rosepoint Publishing: Four point Five Stars