Book Title: SUNNY GALE: A NOVEL by Jamie Lisa Forbes
Category: Adult Fiction 18+, 268 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction, Literary Novel
Publisher: Pronghorn Press
Release date: May, 2024
Formats Available for Review: print-softback (USA only) and ebook (PDF, NetGalley download)
Tour dates: Oct 21 to Nov 8, 2024
Content Rating: PG-13 +M: There is no profane language. There are some sexual scenes, non explicit. There is one instance of sexual abuse that is more recollected than described. My specific reason for giving this rating was two scenes where animals are harmed intentionally.
"Those who have an interest in historical fiction...will find this book enlightening. It's an eye-opening read and an evocative mixture of fact and fiction." Michaela Gordoni for Portland Book Review.
"Forbes showcases her remarkable storytelling skills, promising readers an unforgettable experience." Suzie Housley for Midwest Book Review
It's 1895 and fourteen year old Hannah Brandt is struggling with the hard life on a new Nebraska homestead. When her imagination is captured by a wild filly she becomes obsessed with horses, which opens the door to her destiny. Just four years later she enters the first Cheyenne Frontier Day rodeo where she wins the relay race and her fate is sealed. She gives herself a new name, Sunny Gale, and pursues a rodeo career, much to the disgust of her young husband and her very proper mother. Sunny defies convention with every move as the drive to compete takes over her life, leaving everything else behind, including husbands and children. It is a rough life she has chosen, but she craves the glory of the spotlight and refuses to bow to the expectations for a woman in her time.
Award winning author Jamie Lisa Forbes has once again brought us complex characters in a story based on real women and the early days when rodeo was wide open for them to become stars. It is a story of the social mores of the times and of a woman determined to defy them no matter how high the personal cost or where that choice might take her.
Forbes’ first novel, Unbroken, won the WILLA Literary Award for Contemporary Fiction in 2011. Her collection of short stories, The Widow Smalls and Other Stories, won the High Plains Book Awards for a short story collection in 2015.
Forbes’ novel of rural North Carolina in the segregation era, entitled Eden, was published in 2020. Her historical novel about women bronc riders in the early days of rodeo, entitled Sunny Gale, was published in May 2024 by Pronghorn Press.
FRANK COYKENDALL
In 1963, Laramie Valley View School was built on a hillside overlooking our valley. The school consolidated several one-room schoolhouses, including my own, which had been within walking distance of my house. Now, my mother had to drive us to school.
On our trips, we noticed a red Volkswagen bug flying past us going so fast it was airborne over the potholes. The driver waved at us.
My mother never waved back. Having grown up in Manhattan and graduated from college at age 20, my mother felt no affinity for ranching families who had never been anywhere and had no education. She could never imagine herself as one of them, although, of course, we were being educated with their children. The practice of acknowledging your “neighbor” with a wave was just another local custom my mother disdained.
Eventually we realized the driver was traveling to his meadows to round up cattle for feeding. This we learned, when one day we saw him pull through a gate and open the car door. To our shock, ten dogs flew out of the car and hit the ground at a dead run. The man himself was over six feet tall. We were in awe at the entire spectacle.
One day, the red Volkswagen pulled over and stopped. My mother stopped and rolled down her window, “Can I help you?”
The man got out of his car. He wasn’t just tall. Everything about him was big. Broad shoulders. Massive jaw. Huge grin.
“Hi, Letty!” he boomed. He made it sound like they’d been good friends for years. As far as knowing her name, everyone in our valley knew everyone else, regardless of whether they spoke with one another or not.
“And you are?” She knew exactly who he was.
“Well, Frank. Frank Coykendall. I run the Miller ranch over here. How ya been doing?”
My mother was struggling to main her iciness in the onslaught of warmth exuded by this man. She looked away up the road. “I’m taking the children to school.”
“Well, so you are. That’s my house and Edna’s right next to it.” Frank turned to us. “How do you two like the new school?”
My brother and I did not dare speak.
“How about all of you come over for cookies after school?”
“They have homework. And Jamie is allergic to nuts.”
“You’ll never guess what Edna was baking this morning.”
Frank and my mother eyed each other. In spite of herself, she was starting to smile because his expression did not falter at her denial. His blue eyes, his grin filled the whole window.
“Cookies without nuts in them.”
“They can stay for five minutes,” said my mother.
“That’s just long enough for a cup of coffee for you too, Letty.”
We stayed more than five minutes. My mother had more than one cup of coffee. We went to their house many times and I would be visiting still if only the world hadn’t kept whirling so fast, spinning us all apart.
I have had the pleasure of reading previous novels from Jamie Lisa Forbes and was honored to have the opportunity to read her newest release, Sunny Gale. It was fun going back in time and reading about the rodeo days of the time. I admired Hannah (Sunny Gale) right from the beginning with her bravery to do away with convention and being who she wants to be. I love how she was determined to be true to herself and not what is expected to her. The author's use of vivid details to bring the rodeo to life, made me feel as though I was right there seeing and hearing it all for myself. There were a few scenes that made me tear up while others made me want to laugh out loud. I thought this was an outstanding story of courage and history. I could not put it down until it was completely read in one sitting.
Sunny Gale will be getting a very well deserved five plus stars from me. I highly recommend it for fans of historical fiction, as well as, literary novels. I would love to read more upcoming releases to come from author, Jamie Lisa Forbes. I thought her talents really shined through in this book and believe it should not be missed.
I received a paperback copy of Jamie Lisa Forbes' Sunny Gale from the publisher, but was not required to write a positive review. This review is one hundred percent my own honest opinion.
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Thank you for your lovely showcase of my novel, Sunny Gale. I am humbled and gratified by your warm review. Thank you so much.
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