The Truth About Love and Lightning

December 10, 2012
McBride (The Cougar Club) takes readers on a winding journey to examine the far-reaching implications of dishonesty. It’s 2010 and single mother Gretchen Brink—who gave birth as a teenager to now-39-year-old Abigail—is living quietly in Walnut Ridge, Mo., with her blind twin sisters, Bennie and Trudy, when a violent twister rips through their farm. While assessing the property damage, Gretchen finds an oddly familiar man trapped under a fallen walnut tree—and subsequently sees that the long-barren tree has delivered an abundance of nuts. Is the mystery man the long-missing Sam Winston, who disappeared years earlier from a refugee camp in Africa and who Gretchen claimed is Abigail’s father? At the same time, Abigail is headed home from Chicago with big news of her own: she’s pregnant and soon to become a single mother herself. Abigail is convinced that her father has returned—but how can Gretchen admit that she lied about her daughter’s parentage? In working through that knotty problem, the author also takes a detour into the past, exploring generations that came before in the ’30s, ’50s, and ’70s. Seamlessly toggling between decades, McBride delivers a poignant page-turner with flawed but lovable characters. Agent: Christina Hogrebe, Jane Rotrosen Agency.

March 15, 2013
Magic, and four decades of unrequited love, form the plot of McBride's latest pajama-party read. The novel opens as a twister approaches the farm at Walnut Ridge. After Gretchen and her blind twin sisters Bennie and Trudy climb unscathed from the basement, they discover the storm hit only their property and deposited a mystery: a shaggy man who has no memory but looks an awful lot like Sam Winston, disappeared and thought dead the past 40 years. Sam is the grandson of Hank Littlefoot, a Native American born of the rez but who, as a teenager, gave up his destiny as a shaman and rainmaker to hit the boards in a traveling vaudeville show. Hank's act is an Injun rain dance; the crowd is always thrilled, and his sweetheart, Nadya (the magician's assistant), notices the streets are wet when they leave the theater. When asked to really make it rain by a desperate farmer, Hank brings a terrific storm, sealing his reputation. Hank's earnings make it possible to buy an old walnut farm, but the effort of rainmaking takes a terrible toll: After the storms, he becomes amnesiac and debilitated and has aged beyond his 20-odd years; in a matter of months, he transforms into an old man with a stoop and silver hair. Hank's daughter Lily has no such talents, but her son Sam has, and teenage Sam loves Gretchen. The farm could be his, but when Gretchen rejects him and confesses a one-night stand has made her pregnant (with a daughter, Amy), Sam goes to Africa as a relief worker. When tragedy befalls Sam, Gretchen tells a lie to soothe his grieving parents. She and baby Abby inherit the farm. Now, 40 years later, Abby has returned home pregnant, and the mystery man seems as if he will either crush everyone's hopes or spin a happy ending. McBride's modern romance is enhanced by the charm of the supernatural--who doesn't love a hottie whose passion brings lightning--but that doesn't prevent the predictability of the plotting.

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January 1, 2013
Gretchen Brink leads a quiet life on the family farm, caring for her blind twin sisters. When the farm is damaged by a tornado, the women discover a man lying in their field, struck by lightning and suffering from amnesia. The storm's aftermath also brings an unexpected visit from Gretchen's daughter, Abby. As the cleanup begins, the Brink women have much to sort through, including determining the identity of the mysterious stranger. Abby is convinced he is her long-lost father, Sam. Gretchen harbors the same suspicion, although she knows Sam is not really Abby's father, despite telling everyone he was when she became pregnant 40 years ago. As the mystery man's identity is slowly revealed, Gretchen contemplates the eventual discovery of her decades-old lie and its impact on her fragile daughter. Despite a plot that is a bit too neatly tied up, this novel offers an interesting cast of characters, particularly the twins, whose lack of sight gives them insight into everyone and everything. McBride's novel is a gentle reminder of the unexpected and inevitable nature of change.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)