Customer Reviews

A Hard Dry Road

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A Hard Dry Road is a very fine work of fiction with characters quirky enough to be interesting and common enough to be real. Through them Karen Brown exhibits some keen insights into the human foolishness of keeping needless secrets.

Karen Brown is an excellent storyteller with a loose and easy style that effectively gets to the point but never seems to be contrived or to be forcing issues on the reader. Her mechanics are flawless -- a rare find these days. It was a joy to read something so well-written and yet as relaxed and natural as an evening stroll.

This book was highly entertaining from first page to last, and I thoroughly enjoyed my trip down A Hard Dry Road. My thanks to Karen Brown for taking me along.

In Snakedance, Oklahoma, pregnant waitress Aleta Thornhill is engaged to marry her boss Delbert Stump, owner of the Dust Bowl Diner though his mother objects to the marriage. However, both keep secrets from one another that if uncovered could end their relationship in anger. A Worse case scenario surfaces when Delbert learns from his mother's inquiries that Aleta had an abortion when she was a teen. Angry for her failure to reveal this to him, Delbert drives to Amarillo, Texas seeking to think things through by himself

Aleta, driven by music teacher Rick Lucas, follows. She finds him in a motel where they begin to clear the air until a drunken female enters Delbert's motel room seeking her underwear. Aleta flees for home while the local law delays Delbert. On his way home Delbert knows he must persuade his cherished Aleta that he loves her. However, he wonders how she will react when he tells her his deepest secret that impacts the identity of the father of the child she carries.

The premise of this well written romance is that secrets leads to everybody plays the fool and they can destroy a relationship when trust is not a main ingredient. The two prime characters and his mother keep confidences that lead to suspicion and distrust. Though the revelations seem too dramatic and feel as if they will never end, fans will appreciate moseying on down A HARD, DRY ROAD.

Harriet Klausner