WHERE COYOTES HOWL by Sandra Dallas

 

My thoughts

After reading LITTLE SOULS last year I was very excited about reading this book. It is both good and bad. Good in that it will definitely make you feel lots of deep emotions. Bad in that there is a bit too much devastation happening. Also I did not like the very end. To me it was just too much. I don't believe it would have happened. Thus I did find that part unbelievable and it lost a star for that. 

When Ellen comes to Wallace, Wyoming to be the new school teacher little does she know that her life is about to take a huge turn. Partly for good and a little not so good. She meets Charlie and they instantly fall in love. They don't really do a lot of courting but they do go on horse rides and to visit people. They go to the school picnic and after that they do seem to spend a lot of time together. They get married and live in a small shack that he built for them. Ellen becomes friends with several of the local ladies and her best friend turns out to be a prostitute turned wife who is very likable and pretty down to earth. Then the tragedies start. 

Life on the plains of Wyoming are hard. Winters so cold that you can't go outside without possibly freezing. Summer so hot you can barely stand it. There are some very mean men that live in Wallace also. Mean to their wives. Treat them as if they are nothing. Ellen's friend Ruth is one. I really liked Ruth very much. I kept thinking she should leave the monster but you do understand why she can't. Where would she go and how would she get there. Then you meet Julia who's husband kept her pregnant all the time with no time to even heal between babies. There was a lot of death during this time. A lot of children who died. It's quite heartbreaking to read. The life of a woman during this time is almost unbearable. Some survive and others just don't. Some actually lost their minds it was so bad. Seems the men faired pretty good which I found unbelievable in parts. I know men are tougher but it's still a hard life. 

This book is very well written and some of the characters are likable. Some are not. There are two men you would detest deeply. At least one woman you will root for to survive. As for the big love story between the main two characters.. I have no doubt they loved each other deeply but there was just nothing written to indicate that their love was any deeper or stronger than, say, the Gurleys. Yes they did love each other and other characters constantly reminded Ellen how much Charlie basically worshipped her but I didn't see it as any stronger than other couples. It could have been written in I think. I'm not saying this book is not excellent because it is. It's very good. You'll want Ellen and Charlie to be the loving couple that you read about. Deeply in love. I suppose it could be a given without writing all the mushy parts. They did love each other deeply but they were also very typical. Charlie did love Ellen and helped her in many ways. But she did him also. 

The two characters that I really liked were Hattie and Miss Ferguson. Miss Ferguson's story was good. It was sad but she was a tough woman and survived. 

This is a very heartbreaking story with a lot of loss. It might should have a trigger warning about all the children who die but alas back then it happened so often. It's a sad story but also has some happy things in it too. It's told by one of the characters and in the epilogue you'll find out which. I did guess who right before I got there. It had to be that one... Again, I didn't like the very ending. To me it was just not right. It didn't fit. 

Thank you #NetGalley, #SandraDallas, #StMartinsPress for this ARC. This is my own true thoughts about this book.

Four stars and I recommend it. It's very good and very well written. I just didn't like the end....

Synopsis

Beautifully rendered, Where Coyotes Howl is a vivid and deeply affecting ode to the early twentieth century West, from master storyteller Sandra Dallas.

Except for the way they loved each other, they were just ordinary, everyday folks. Just ordinary.

1916. The two-street town of Wallace is not exactly what Ellen Webster had in mind when she accepted a teaching position in Wyoming, but within a year’s time she’s fallen in love—both with the High Plains and with a handsome cowboy named Charlie Bacon. Life is not easy in the flat, brown corner of the state where winter blizzards are unforgiving and the summer heat relentless. But Ellen and Charlie face it all together, their relationship growing stronger with each shared success, and each deeply felt tragedy.

Ellen finds purpose in her work as a rancher’s wife and in her bonds with other women settled on the prairie. Not all of them are so lucky as to have loving husbands, not all came to Wallace willingly, and not all of them can survive the cruel seasons. But they look out for each other, share their secrets, and help one another in times of need. And the needs are great and constant. The only city to speak of, Cheyenne, is miles away, making it akin to the Wild West in rural Wallace. In the end, it is not the trials Ellen and Charlie face together that make them remarkable, but their love for one another that endures through it all.