Rainwater by Sandra Brown

Rainwater

by Sandra Brown

Hardcover 247 pages

Publisher's Blurb

Ella Barron, a single Texas mother, built a careful life running a boarding house in the Depression-era cotton South. But when a mysterious stranger takes a free room, he also takes Ella’s careful life apart. In the tradition of Gone With the Wind comes historical romance in the Dust Bowl.

Ella runs her Texas boarding house with the efficiency of a ship’s captain and the grace of a gentlewoman. She cooks, cleans, launders, and cares for her ten-year-old son, Solly, a sweet but challenging child whose busy behavior and failure to speak elicits undesired advice from others in town. Ella’s plate is full from sunup to sundown. When a room in her boarding house opens up, the respected town doctor brings Ella a new boarder―the handsome and gallant Mr. David Rainwater—but Ella is immediately resistant to opening up her home to this mysterious stranger.

Even with assurances that Mr. Rainwater is a man of impeccable character, a former cotton broker and a victim of the Great Depression, Ella stiffens at the thought of taking him in. Dr. Kincaid tells Ella in confidence that Mr. Rainwater won’t require the room for long: he is dying. Begrudgingly, Ella accepts Mr. Rainwater’s application to board, but she knows that something is happening; she is being swept along by an unusual series of events. Soon, this strong-minded, independent woman will realize that the living that she has eked out for herself in the small bubble of her town is about to change, whether she likes it or not...

Racial tensions, the financial strain of livelihoods in cotton drying up into dust, and the threat of political instability swirl together into a tornado on the horizon. One thing is certain: the winds of change are blowing all over Texas—and through the cracks in the life that Ella Barron has painstakingly built. This is the story of a woman who takes her life’s circumstances in both hands, but who will be forced to reckon with the chaos of her historical circumstances

Review

This is the first time I've read a Sandra Brown book and romance is normally not my go-to genre but this is claimed to be different from the author's usual fare.

I found it to be a well-crafted story written in an easy to read style which flowed perfectly. I found it really difficult to put down and finished it over two days.

From early on in the book you just know that it isn't going to end happily but by then it has sucked you in to the narrative and even though you feel you know exactly where it is going it still has time to deliver a twist right at the end.

I'm so glad I decided to read this one as it was a welcome change from the usual thrillers and detective novels I usually read.