Strange Angels

When Heywood Bennett, the patriarch of a Nebraska ranching family, dies, his three children are certain that now they will be free. But Heywood's will attempts to force them to become the family he had never been able to forge during his lifetime. Unwillingly, the siblings' destinies are thrown together: Arthur, outraged at being denied his place as the family's sole legitimate heir, tries to destroy his bastard brother, Cody. Kya, the free-spirited sister both brothers adore, searches for her mother and her Lakota heritage. And Cody, who has cowboyed on the ranch since the age of fourteen, falls in love with Latta Jaboy, the older widow next door. Set in the Nebraska sandhills, a world filled with cowboys, honky-tonk bars, small towns, and huge stretches of rolling prairie, Strange Angels confirms Agee as "a gifted poet of that dark lushness in the heart of the American landscape." In creating this world whose inhabitants are tested by the forces of nature, hard work, and the conflicts of the human heart, Jonis Agee shows once again that she is a writer of uncompromising courage and passion.… (more)