Breaking Wild

Starred review from November 2, 2015
After three young adult novels, Les Becquets scores big with this very adult thriller about two women facing life and death challenges in western Colorado’s rugged wilderness. During a November elk-hunting trip, Amy Raye Latour disappears while hunting early one morning. Married with children, Amy Raye is an experienced outdoorswoman and a skilled bow hunter, so it’s a surprise when she simply vanishes. Pru Hathaway is a ranger with the Bureau of Land Management, a capable, self-reliant law enforcement officer, raising a teenage son as a single mom. Pru and her search and rescue dog, Kona, join the county sheriff in the desperate search as winter weather closes in. The search reveals few clues, but Pru and the sheriff both fear the worst—that Amy Raye is dead, by accident, suicide, animal attack, or something else. After four days, the search is called off, but Pru isn’t convinced Amy Raye is dead and continues to search. In alternating chapters, the lives of the two women are exposed. Amy Raye hides a disturbing secret from her husband, which makes the sheriff look at a motive for possible murder. And Pru’s determination to find Amy Raye reveals her strong character. This is a powerful story of survival, wilderness field craft, and fractured relationships packed into a suspenseful plot with more than a few surprises. Agent: Michelle Brower, Folio Literary.

Starred review from November 1, 2015
In her adult fiction debut, Les Becquets (Season of Ice, 2008, etc.) writes of a woman lost in the wild and the woman who tries to save her, alternating chapters between their two compelling voices. When Amy Raye Latour leaves her weekend hunting companions to strike out on her own and bag an elk with nothing but her bow and arrows, she soon finds herself at the mercy of the elements and the animals of the Colorado wilderness. Ranger Pru Hathaway, along with her search-and-rescue dog, responds to reports of Amy Raye's disappearance, and over the weeks that follow, she scours the land for evidence of what may have happened to the hunter. Both women are mesmerizing characters. Flawed, injured, fierce, and passionate, their love and respect for the world around them showcase one of the novel's themes: that in the cruelest places, there lies the capacity for "that beautiful aching moment of how the world could be." Both Pru and Amy Raye come from lives of great loss, and these sorrows and mistakes are explained as back story, but they both find healing in the expansive land of the West. Another obvious achievement of the novel is the writing; Les Becquets' prose is as spare, haunting, and nuanced as the wild landscape she brings to life. The reimagining of a romantic West through the experiences of two strong women both challenges the dominant stereotype of "cowboy country" and simultaneously offers the comment that gender has no place when it comes to matters of survival. It is the human capacity for endurance that is celebrated here, the capacity for friendship, for love, for loyalty, and for living against the odds. A transcendent, breathless exploration of the darkest depths of loneliness and the unbreakable human spirit.

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November 15, 2015

After three YA novels (The Stones of Mourning Creek), Les Becquets makes her adult fiction debut with this thoughtful page-turner. Amy Raye Latour is an expert hunter, but in the last weekend of the season she becomes lost in the Colorado wilderness. Pru Hathaway is a ranger for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and does a little bit of everything in the job, including search and rescue with her dog, Kona. When Amy Raye goes missing, Pru and Kona are called in. But heavy snows make the search difficult. When some of Amy Raye's belongings are found, the rescuers fear that she has died, and what was a rescue operation will have to become a recovery in the spring. Though logic is against her, Pru is convinced there's still a chance for Amy Raye. VERDICT Les Becquets's novel is told in alternating viewpoints of the two women, and while there's plenty of suspense, there's also a thoughtful meditation on the choices both women have made and how their lives have met in this place and time. Though this is fiction, readers who enjoyed the internal development of Cheryl Strayed's Wild will find a lot to like here.--Jane Jorgenson, Madison P.L., WI

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Starred review from November 1, 2015
Les Becquets, the author of two young adult novels (Love, Cajun Style, 2005; Season of Ice, 2008), pens her first novel for adults, with stellar results. In a taut and thrilling narrative, Les Becquets depicts the search for a female bow hunter who has gone missing in the wilds of western Colorado. Amy Raye Latour is determined to bag an elk before hunting season is over. She leaves her two male companions and heads for a tree stand, where she badly wounds a male elk. On his trail, she fails to notice the worsening conditions and becomes consumed with finishing her task. But things go from bad to worse, and when she fails to return, an all-out search is launched. Ranger Pru Hathaway and her rescue dog, Kona, are part of the effort. Both women are strong-minded, independent outdoorswomen who have had difficulties in their lives. Amy, though married to a goodhearted man, is drawn to infidelity, while Pru, the mother of a high-schooler, is still grieving the death of her first love. Skillfully blending the emotional terrain of women's fiction with a briskly paced adventure story, Les Becquets packs her narrative with fascinating details about hunting, the logistics of search-and-rescue, and the beauty and danger of the wilderness.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)