For both women living in the same house over winter is going to be a challenge and Nettie Mae has every right to hate Cora! Nettie Mae isn't as stern as she seems, she's a natural home maker and she loves children.

Beulah has three younger siblings (Benjamin, Charles and Miranda) who may as well be cardboard cut-outs. Not one of them ever exhibits a “personality” of any kind. The two boys are referred to as the “little fellers” over and over so often, I started to cringe. Besides, “I’m hungry,” they haven’t anything to say. There’s a moment when the youngest child, Miranda, is in danger but it’s difficult to care since we don't know anything about her. She’s briefly described physically but never referred to again, except to say, “Thank you for the dolly,” to the widow, Nettie Mae. Clyde saves Miranda from a roaring river, but I think I would have been more moved if he had saved his horse. I felt I knew his horse far better than Miranda. Beulah’s siblings could have been completely erased without any change to the narrative. Why include characters that have nothing to add to the story? The power of this book comes from the way the author brings her characters to life. Our main protagonist is Beulah Bemis age 13. She is the eldest of the Bemis children. Smart, capable, but dreamy and a little magical. Beulah sees and notices what others don't. Beulah is the lynchpin of the story. For both women living in the same house over winter is going to be a challenge and Nettie Mae has every right to hate Cora! Nettie Mae isn't as stern as she seems, she's a natural home maker and she loves children. Cora isn't a bad person, she wasn't prepared for the lonely isolated life on the remote prairie, Substance took advantage of her weakness and she has to live with her shame of her infidelity. There are several other elements of the story that made my teeth clench, but I’ll just mention two more: In the Northern Wyoming prairie in the shadow of the Bighorn Mountains, the Bemis and Webber families are the only settlers for miles, with the nearest town 20 miles away. It is 1876 when Ernest Bemis comes across his wife, Cora, with the neighbor, Substance Webber. In a fit of rage, he shoots and kills Substance. Now with Substance in the grave and Ernest in jail, both wives are without husbands and left alone with the responsibility of the farms and their children. Life is harsh on the prairie, so with winter looming and the harvest not gathered, the loss of the men is devastating. Nettie Mae Webber is consumed with bitterness and hatred over Cora Bemis’s betrayal. At the same time, she feels relief at losing her brutal and uncaring husband. Cora is consumed with guilt and regret. It is 13-year-old Beulah Bemis and 16-year-old Clyde Webber, both resilient, likable characters, who try to carry the workload. They realize the real danger their families face with the coming winter. Nettie is hard to convince of the necessity of working together and moving the Bemis family into her house. When they join households, her animosity towards Cora creates conflict. She does everything to keep Clyde and Beulah separated, out of fear of a romance blooming.From the bestselling author of The Ragged Edge of Night comes a powerful and poetic novel of survival and sacrifice on the American frontier.

Set in the 1870 eastern Wyoming prairie in the shadow of the Bighorn Mountains, two families with adjoining homesteads, the nearest town or neighbor twenty miles away, are broken and left without the leadership of their men when one catches his wife and neighbor in a compromising position.

I’ve always heard the saying that no home is big enough for 2 women and it was a long, bitter winter as Nettie Mae and Cora try to work together to survive. I wanted to hate both women, but they each had a great deal of heartache and struggle. Nettie Mae had lost 4 of her 5 children and only had Clyde. Cora had been raised in Saint Louis and was a granddaughter of Ulysses S. Grant and had never expected to live in the prairie wilderness. This is a story about love and hate, but especially about life and death and the connection to nature. It's Historical Fiction at its finest!

Wyoming prairie in 1876, two isolated farming families live next door to each other and one night all hell breaks loose. When Ernest Bemis discovers his wife Cora and his neighbor Substance Webber cheating! The meek mild Ernest shoots Substance and kills him. He rides to the closest town, he informs the local sheriff about his crime and is jailed for two years.The author certainly convinces the reader of her expertise regarding the landscape and the era. You could easily imagine the farms, nearby mountains, the river, the sod houses, etc..

What’s good about the book? The writing is VERY good. This author has a talent with words that is unmatched in most other books I have read. If you love literary fiction, this book is lyrical and written with elegance. That’s where it ends for me. Literary fiction is supposed to provide in-depth characterizations too. The four main characters are unique and moderately interesting, yet they sometimes respond in unexpected (unbelievable) ways (Clyde and the coyote). The story is about two women struggling to live and keep their children safe in such a harsh environment, how they cope with being totally isolated for months, how they discovered by working together they could survive the long winter, it's about forgiving someone who has betrayed you and giving them a second chance. Edit: After finishing this several weeks ago, I restarted it and read it super slowly. Savored the story and the language. My gosh, this book is so good. I felt the tension between Cora and Nettie Mae even more than in the first read, I felt all of the heartache and then the hope from start to finish, and I fell head-over-heels in love with the isolation and harshness of the Wyoming prairie. Since I enjoyed the book so much, enough to read it again immediately, and since I feel lost now that I'm done with my reread: I'm bumping my rating up from 4/5 to 5/5.Wyoming, 1870. For as long as they have lived on the frontier, the Bemis and Webber families have relied on each other. With no other settlers for miles, it is a matter of survival. But when Ernest Bemis finds his wife, Cora, in a compromising situation with their neighbor, he doesn’t think of survival. In one impulsive moment, a man is dead, Ernest is off to prison, and the women left behind are divided by rage and remorse. Wyoming, 1876. The Bemis (Ernest/Cora and daughter Beulah) and Webber (Substance/Nettie Mae and son Clyde) have relied on each other for survival. But when Ernest Bemis finds his wife, Cora with Substance, Ernest kills him. While Ernest is in prison, the women left behind, despite their feelings of anger and shame, they must live together in one roof to survive the harsh winter. Their children Clyde and Beulah inevitably start to develop feelings for each other. I most loved Clyde Webber. I just loved reading his scenes. Such a strong boy with a lot of feeling about what his father had done and how his mother behaved in the aftermath. Clyde was raised under the mentality that men do not cry or show emotion-they get the job done when it is time, no matter what. So watching him navigate his loss as a young man vs. stepping into his father’s role in the family was really great. Young Beulah is a great character as well, but the almost-magical portions of her POVs made it just a teensy bit harder for me to enjoy her role. I never do as well when there is mysticism or magical realism in stories, even in small parts, and I do feel like this book is mostly Beulah’s story. Losing her husband to Cora's indiscretion is another hardship for stoic Nettie Mae. But as a brutal Wyoming winter bears down, Cora and Nettie Mae have no choice but to come together as one family--to share the duties of working the land and raising their children. There's Nettie Mae's son, Clyde--no longer a boy, but not yet a man--who must navigate the road to adulthood without a father to guide him, and Cora's daughter, Beulah, who is as wild and untamable as her prairie home.