The Bones of Paradise

by Jonis Agee

The award-winning author of The River Wife returns with a multi-generational family saga, set in the unforgiving Nebraska Sandhills in the years following the massacre at Wounded Knee—an ambitious tale of history, vengeance, race, guilt, betrayal, family, and belonging, filled with a vivid cast of characters shaped by violence, love, and a desperate loyalty to the land.

Ten years after the 7th Calvary massacred more than 200 Lakota men, women, and children at Wounded Knee, J. B. Bennett, a white rancher, and Star, a young Native American woman, are murdered in a remote meadow on J. B.’s land. The deaths bring together the scattered members of the Bennett family: his cunning and hard father, Drum; his estranged wife, Dulcinea; and his young sons, Cullen and Hayward. As the mystery of these twin deaths unfolds, the history of the dysfunctional Bennett’s and their damning secrets are revealed exposing the conflicted heart of a nation caught between past and future.

At the center of The Bones of Paradise are two remarkable women. Dulcinea, returned after bitter years of self-exile, yearns for redemption and the courage to mend her broken family and reclaim the land that is rightfully hers. Rose, scarred by the terrible slaughters that have decimated and dislocated her people, struggles to accept the death of her sister, Star, and refuses to rest until she is avenged.

A kaleidoscopic portrait of misfits, schemers, chancers, and dreamers, Jonis Agee’s bold new novel is a panorama of America at the dawn of a new century. A beautiful evocation of this magnificent, blood-soaked land—its sweeping prairies, seas of golden grass and sandy hills, all at the mercy of two unpredictable and terrifying forces, weather and lawlessness—and the durable men and women who dared to tame it. Intimate and epic, The Bones of Paradise is a remarkable achievement: a mystery, a tragedy, a romance, and an unflagging exploration of the beauty and brutality, tenderness and cruelty that defined the settling of the American west.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Mystery, Westerns, Book Club, Crime, Historical

417 pages, Hardcover

First published August 2, 2016

About the author

Jonis owns twenty pairs of cowboy boots, some of them works of art, loves the open road, and believes that ecstasy and hard work are the basic ingredients of life and writing.

Born in Omaha, Nebraska, she grew up in Nebraska and Missouri, places where many of her stories and novels are set. She was educated at The University of Iowa (BA) and The State University of New York at Binghamton (MA, PhD). She is Adele Hall Professor of English at The University of Nebraska — Lincoln, where she teaches creative writing and twentieth-century fiction.

Awards include three books chosen as New York Times Notable Books, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, Nebraska Book Award, Nebraska Arts Council Merit Award, Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship in Fiction, Loft McKnight Award of Distinction, and Editor's Choice Award from Foreword Magazine.

Reviews

[Will Byrnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the hills grudges never died, they remained as they took place, as the words were uttered, since there was nowhere for them to go, nothing to break them apart, the soft edges of the hills offered nothing hard enough to smash the anger, nothing sharp enough to cut through the Gordian knot, so it lived fresh, undeniable as the first day. In the hills there were only first days, no history. Nothing was allowed to die. They marked time by the growing list of wrongs until its weight pulled them under and they vanished, smothered with the breath of sand in their mouths.

X-Ray heaven and you may not like what you see in the underyling structure. The wind blows hard and always in the Sand Hills region of Nebraska. Disturb the soil, even a little, say by planting anything other than grass, and that soil will catch the next gust on out of there. Not exactly a farming Shangri-la. And tough on cattlemen too, as big bovines have been known to trample the life out of a place, given the chance. Makes for a hard life. Calls for hard people. But where is the line between tough and ornery, strong and cruel, determined and murderous? Where is the line between being attached to the land and being nailed to it?


Jonis Agee

Circa 1900, rancher J.B. Bennett was straddling that line, 20,000 acres, cattle, employing more than a couple of men, and struggling, always struggling. The land gave up its bounty grudgingly. Almost as tight-fisted as Bennett’s hard-hearted father, Drum, proud owner of the adjacent spread, and a dark force as sand-blastingly abrasive as the incessant wind. But JB won’t have to worry about the land or the sand for long. Moments after he finds a dead Lakota girl, while inspecting his property, a familiar face (“Oh, it’s you—“) appears, fires once, and sends JB to a wind and sand free realm.

Thus opens the central pair of mysteries that constitute one of the major elements of Jonis Agee’s latest novel. As with her award-winning The River Wife, Agee (a distant relation of James Agee) offers a fictional look at a trying time in American history, and a trying place. Unraveling the whos and the whys of the twin-killings drives the narrative.

When JB met his unexpected end, he had been thinking about his wife of twenty years, Dulcinea. They had had a major falling out ten years earlier and she had been away from the ranch for the duration. Which brings us to story elements two and three. You may recall that Odysseus wandered the planet for ten years after the end of the Trojan War before finding his way home. When Dulcinea refers to one of her sons as her Telemachus, it is pretty clear, if it wasn’t already, that there is some classical referencing afoot, albeit with Penelope in the role of wanderer this time. Don’t go looking for a one-to-one equivalence. The two stories are quite different. But it can be satisfying to pick out the refs as they pop up. A crowd of suitors is another nod to Homer. The more important item here, though, is the character of Dulcinia. She is the heart of the story. She may face more danger at home than she did on the road and the question is whether she can survive the sundry local threats, natural and not. Alienated from her children, Cullen and Hayward, now teenagers, she wants back in, and, having inherited her husband’s land, she will do everything in her power to re-establish a home, and family. Drum would like nothing more than to see her dead, or at the very least gone. And there are other forces allied against her as well. Does she have the strength, the character, the smarts to find truth and make things right, or will she succumb?

It is not only JB’s death that requires investigation. The young Lakota was killed for a reason, and it falls to her sister, Rose, close friend to Dulcinea, to look into her murder. God knows local law enforcement won’t. The underlying force here is a large one. In 1890 there was a huge gathering of native people at Pine Ridge in what is now South Dakota, not far from the Sand Hills. It was ostensibly a religious event, a mass Ghost Dance meant to bring about the restoration of native hunting grounds and removal of white invaders, through spiritual means. Instead, the US Army surrounded the encampment and, whether through accident or intent, shooting erupted, at the end of which as many as three hundred Native American men, women and children, mostly unarmed, had been slaughtered. Rose and her sister had been present, as had some of the other characters in this tale. The echoes of events from that disgraceful day resound over the years to drive not only Rose and her sister, but some of the residents of the Sand Hills as well.

Agee has woven Drum Bennett’s drive to consolidate his family’s holdings, whatever it takes, Dulcinea’s drive to reconstitute her family, make her late husband’s ranch productive again, while looking for his killer, and the chilly wind of history that blows across the sand from the Wounded Knee massacre into a compelling, heart-wrenching story.

She offers attention as well to Dulcinea’s two lost boys. Cullen and Hayward (Cain and Abel?), gives us some history on how JB and Dulcinea came together and fell apart, gives us insight into the perspective of the victims of Wounded Knee, living and dead. There is a local farmer, a living testament to the unforgiving nature of the land, with an appropriate name, Graver, who gets caught up in the Bennett family drama. There is clearly a connection made between him and Dulce. Trust is established, and more, but Agee shows good sense in keeping it from playing too large a part in the tale.

Agee’s love of the land is palpable. It may be harsh and less than bountiful in the usual sense, but there is something about the hardness that clearly makes her love it even more, and appreciate the beauty it has to offer.

for a short, lovely time she believed that her life, their life, meant this place and what they did here, what they learned by living and loving each other. It was because she still felt him here, J.B., he touched her, and nothing could change this place, this land...It was how she understood the Indians…who mourned the land, not as wealth, but as the place where all was alive, all living, in one form or another. The whites took it but the dead still walked it, the spirits, whatever they were. Her faith had removed God, dispersed him like seed or gravel. It was not that God didn’t exist. It was that he wasn’t alone, but in pieces, parts, always whole, sufficient, always multiple. So like the ancient Greeks she trod lightly, carefully, tried to give no offense to the land, the sacred grass her feet crushed, the ants hurriedly preparing caverns for the winter, pushing tiny yellow boulders out of a hole the size of a bee’s leg. Oh the offence, to walk so clumsily through the world, to crush and bring havoc, that they couldn’t help. But to give no recognition to the cost of their being alive, to the price paid for their dreams by everything else?

I had two small gripes about the book. My ARE copy comes in at 416 pages, a very reasonable length for a novel that covers as much territory as this one does. I was enrapt for most of the read. But I did feel that there was a sag towards the back end, before the finale. The other was that after a significant death, a whole host of characters head into town for a rodeo. I have no idea if this would have been usual behavior at the time, but it felt to my 21st century sensibility too soon after the loss for such an outing.

This Sand Hills paradise may be a bit more bone than apple, but it clearly possesses its own serpents, its own angry deity and more than its share of castings out. Linking to another myth, a weary wanderer comes home after a long odyssey to find a bloody mess much in need of repair. It may not be Ithaca, but it is a kingdom nonetheless, and needs ruling. Set in a harsh American landscape, Agee brings to life visions of struggle. Fathers versus sons. Men versus women, whites versus natives, and the land versus everyone. There is no point if there is no hope, if there is only struggle. Many thought the land offered a new Eden, and certainly this spanse of promised land was not up to making good that utopian dream. But still, one could scratch out a living, if the elements were not too unkind. One could try to fix what had been broken. One could try to find out truths and attempt to right at least some wrongs. The Bones of Paradise offers enough light to keep us moving through the darkness, enough twists to keep us from going in too-straight a path, enough knowledge to make snatching that apple seem a worthwhile proposition, and enough satisfaction to make the journey through Agee’s pages rewarding. There may or may not be a paradise in store for you or me, but The Bones of Paradise offers readers a little bit of nirvana right here on earth.


Review posted – 1/1/2016

Publication date – 8/2/16

=============================EXTRA STUFF
The author’s personal website

A nice wiki on the author

A look at the Nebraska Sand Hills

The wiki on Wounded Knee Massacre is pretty good

An interesting piece on The Ghost Dance

[karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

My God, how we are destroyed

man, this is one meaty book.

and it took me forever to read. not because it was boring; it's not that at all. it's just that it moves at a slow, deliberate pace and there are a lot of storylines to absorb, where each character is given their own manifest destiny-style room to expand and develop. the characters are particularly well-written here; at first there are good guys and bad guys (where "guys" is a gender-neutral term) and questionable decisions made by all, but by the end of the book, the reader has learned enough about these characters that distinctions like "good" and "bad" collapse into "human," which is ultimately what you want in literary fiction.

but it's not literary fiction that's being a dick about it - it's not intellectually taxing for readers who enjoy books that take their time to unfold and have a number of strong characters driving the narrative. if you have a book club with members willing to dive into a book this size and speed, it's perfect for discussion, and it's a good mix of genres: historical fiction, family saga, mystery, western and an equally good mix of themes - race and gender and family and historical atrocities and the struggle to exist in a world where nature and man are equally cruel.

The roads to the Black Hills gold were strewn with with skeletons of horses and mules and oxen driven to death in the mad hurry to reach men's destiny. Furniture discarded, empty barrels, crates of clothing and mementos, even toys left behind once the babe itself was gone. It was a hard land for those without patience. Time ruled this land, and in time everyone was wounded, and everything of value disappeared.

it's got all the best parts of the western: slow-burning vengeance, stubborn perseverance, lawlessness, savage violence, moral flexibility, the pursuit of gold and oil, hardship, and an absence of community - these are men and women hardened by their own struggle to carve out a fragile existence in an unpredictable environment; deceptively beautiful natural landscapes that can turn in an instant, bringing cyclones, drought, and blizzards that can destroy everything in their wake, where a family can just starve to death and no one will help. or rather - the only man willing to help gets murdered on page 11, on his own land, beside the still-warm body of a murdered lakota girl.

cue the mystery elements. there's the big mystery: the double murder that opens the book as well as the maybe-attempted-murder of the character who discovers the bodies, but the murders actually take a back seat - they spur the action and flavor the rest of the book, but several smaller scale mini-mysteries get in the way - family secrets, arrangements, and estrangements, shady land dealings, contested wills, suspicious characters, and the looming shadow of the memory of the massacre at wounded knee, which links several characters in shame or outrage.

the book scoots back and forth through time, and includes the massacre (which is absolutely horrifying. well-written, but gutting), as well as events leading up to and following the event. and all of the questions will be answered, although some of them will be answered without fanfare, quietly inserted in casual, "blink and you'd miss 'em" ways. which i love.

i've barely scratched the surface in this meandering review - that's how much there is to this one. but i will say it's a stunning book, and it lingers. it is very much worth the time it will take you to digest it.

He had to keep going, if for no other reason than the hope that the work would kill him and it would all be over.

i promise it will not kill you.

come to my blog!

[Angela M · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not a fan of mysteries or crime stories, but I am a big fan of family sagas and historical fiction so it was this part of the book description that piqued my interest. It takes place in the Sand Hills of Nebraska in 1900, a decade after the horrific and shameful event in American history , the massacre at Wounded Knee. While time has passed, what happened at Wounded Knee is ever present in the flashbacks, in the thoughts of a slimy character who took part in it, but most of all in the heart and soul of Rose, a native Lakota Indian, one of the strong women depicted here. It is most eloquently told in the words of the spirit of her dead sister Star.

It's also the story of the Bennett family - Drum Bennett, the dictatorial, heartless father who will only give land to his son J.B Bennett for a dear price that separates him from a son and his wife Dulcinea. It is Dulcinea who ultimately tries to pick up the pieces of this broken family. The past, the family secrets are slowly divulged. While finding the murderer who kills two people at the beginning was central to the story, there is so much more. It's bursting with history of the time and place . It's heartbreaking and sickening as the massacre at Wounded Knee is described. It's filled with hatred and love, with the vile greed of some as well as goodness of others . I'm glad that I didn't let the murder mystery part of this story keep me from reading it .

Thanks to William Morrow/HarperCollins and Edelweiss.

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Living in the sand hills of Nebraska takes a huge amount of determination, grit, and a love of the land. For Dulcinea and JB it was a place to ranch, raise a family and plan a future until it became instead a place where Dulcinea would loose her sons and run from her husband. There is of course a heartbreaking story behind this. She will return years later with plans to reclaim what was hers but will instead find her husband murdered and a young Indian woman alongside him. A man named Graver, who has already lost his entire family to illness, will come upon them, almost losing his own life. Who are the killers? All the men suspected have one thing in common, they all were at the massacre of Wounded knee, as were the two victims

The author spares no descriptions, no words when relating this horrible massacre. It is vivid and graphic. It is horrific and will leave a legacy of revenge and hatred. This is a very grim story, for much of it there is only a glimmer of light, of hope but the story of these people is enthralling as well. Their lives are so hard, very much a life of survival as things in this area for ranching have not gone well. Oil and mineral prospectors are pressuring the ranchers to grant them the rights to their properties. Loved that this featured two incredibly strong women, Dulcinea who will after much heartache, show determinable and enviable strength and Rose, her Indian friend and also the sister of the murdered young Indian girl, who vows vengeance against the murderer. One get s good sense of the inner struggles of these two women and the struggles to tame this land as a whole. The last chapter provides a glimpse into the future and it is here we can see if their struggles will bear fruit. Quite a good and realistic story.

[Cheri · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Wounded Knee Massacre occurred on 29 December 1890 near Wounded Knee Creek. J.B. Bennett’s ranch is not terribly far from Wounded Knee. Ten years have passed since that horrible day as J.B. rides with the thoughts in his mind centered on his wife, Dulcinea, whom he hasn’t seen in some time, when he happens upon the lifeless body of a young Lakota girl, Star. He’s trying to figure out what to do about the girl, worrying about when this happened or who or why, when he sees Star’s murderer, a moment of recognition passes briefly before J.B. joins the young Lakota girl in the afterlife.

“’My God, how we are destroyed,’ she whispered, a line from some forgotten drama, or maybe she had written it in her head as she entered the room where she had slept with J.B. all those years ago. She had carried on an internal dialogue with her husband for so long that his death did not alter the conversation. It merely expanded across time and space.”

With her two sons now fatherless, Dulcinea returns to the ranch to re-establish a relationship with her two sons, Cullin and Hayward, work the ranch and heal old wounds. Drum, J.B.’s father, has other plans. For Cullin, for her, and none of them include her staying on the ranch. Drum isn’t alone in wanting her out of the picture, whatever that takes.

“In the hills grudges never died, they remained as they took place, as the words were uttered, since there was nowhere for them to go, nothing to break them apart, the soft edges of the hills offered nothing hard enough to smash the anger, nothing sharp enough to cut through the Gordian knot, so it lived fresh, undeniable as the first day. Nothing was allowed to die. They marked time by the growing list of wrongs until its weight pulled them under and they vanished, smothered with the breath of sand in their mouths.”

Drum sees perhaps his biggest mistake in his life was allowing his son J.B. to go away to school with his wife’s people. All that learning accomplished, in Drum’s eyes, was to turn J.B. into someone too soft to properly run a ranch, and he’s already done what he could to make sure that Cullin has what it takes to become the man that J.B. never was.

“People couldn’t help the pain that rode them like overbroke ponies and tired them too soon for the length of a life.

There’s the will to contest, and not only J.B.’s killer to find, there’s Star’s death, as well. Star’s sister Rose, a friend of Dulcinea’s, wants answers. She deserves them. She knows, of course, she’ll need to find the answers herself; there won’t be anyone else out looking, who cares about the death of a Lakota girl.

As days pass, new people arrive, to tend the ranch, to try to convince Dulcinea of their trustworthiness, to sell her an idea. She waits each evening for the next day to be better, but the more that time passes, the more determined she is that this is now her life. This ranch. As she looks out at the beautiful sunsets, the beauty of nature everywhere, she looks inward, as well, and finds her home.

“Her faith had removed God, dispersed him like seed or gravel. It was not that God didn’t exist. It was that he wasn’t alone, but in pieces, parts, always whole, sufficient, always multiple. So like the ancient Greeks she trod lightly, carefully, tried to give no offense to the land, the sacred grass her feet crushed, the ants hurriedly preparing caverns for the winter, pushing tiny yellow boulders out of a hole the size of a bee’s leg. Oh the offense, to walk so clumsily through the world, to crush and bring havoc, that they couldn’t help.”

Like nature herself, this story is sometimes violent, ugly and filled with destruction born of hate, and death, and sometimes it takes sudden unexpected turns whipping you in another direction entirely, but there are also moments of unexpected beauty that fill these pages.

[Carol]

To be published by William Morrow August 2016, my thanks are extended to both the publisher and Edelweiss.

Sometimes hard to read due to the historical content referencing the massacre at Wounded Knee, The Bones of Paradise was well worth my unease. Ten years after this horrific and brutal event a young Native American Woman, Star and a rancher, J.B. Bennett are found murdered on Bennett's land. Bennett's wife, Dulcinea (love that name) and Star's sister, Rose, two strong women, are determined to avenge the deaths of their loved ones.

Very Good. Keep this one in mind.

[Margitte · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Bones Of Time is a tale of two women during the aftermath of the Massacre of Wounded Knee in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, in 1890, in which more or less 200 Indian people were shot by the 7th Cavalry of the US Army.

In the Sand Hills of JB Bennett's farm, a murdered Indian girl, named Star, is found dead, by JB, and upon investigation he gets shot as well. And so does Graver, who arrived upon the scene. But Graver survived.

In a slow moving story, spanning over historical fiction, murder mystery, western and family saga, a drama unfolds in which lawlessness, vengeance, greed, savage violence, survival in an uncompromising natural world, and stubbornness rule. A ruthless land deal dictated the family's destiny and was ripped apart with JB's passing.

The two women, Dulcinea, the estranged wife of JB, and her best friend, Rose, a native American women from the Lakota tribe, set out to find the killer amidst dangerous circumstances for both. Dulcinea's two young sons, Cullen and Hayward, will pay the ultimate price. JB's father, Drum Bennet, with a notorious history buried in darkness, ensured that the land would forever remain in the hands of his family and nothing stood in his way to accomplish his dreams.

Jonis Agee's first book, The River Wife, was one of the best books I've ever read. In fact, it is one of the books I give to my friends to read all the time. Like this book, The Bones Of Time is packed with pathos, encapsulated in atmosphere and scenic splendor. An incredibly gripping tale winds through the history of the South Dakota landscape, where nobody could escape their own role in the writing of this family's story of hardship and hope.

Overall a wonderful, deeply moving story in the literary fiction genre.

Some of the events in the book did not make sense to me. Instead of adding the WOW-factor to the denouement, it simply deflated the realism, in my humble opinion. Dulcinea's marriage, as a plot factor, in the final throws of the saga, simply slaughtered the otherwise excellent story. It did not fit in. The storyline also jumped around too much in an effort to build the characters. Although it was riveting to read, it was also confusing and too disruptive. Instead of indicating the jump from one character to another in the chapter headings, it just happened without warning all over the book. However, I absolutely loved being part of the milieu, learning more about the history and lifestyle of a land I will never visit, but captured my heart and imagination.

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a really excellent book. It's an historical novel set ten years after the battle at Wounded Knee ( actually it wasn't a battle, it was a massacre). At the beginning of the book, a rancher finds a dead Indian girl on his land and is almost immediately killed himself. Pretty much the rest of the book is devoted to finding out who committed these two murders. And you don't find out the answer until almost the last page of the book, which is just the way I like it.

As I said it's a great book, extremely well written, with many memorable characters, and some great descriptions of the countryside, as well as beautiful passages about the many horses in the novel. The book is somewhat reminiscent of Larry McMurtry, so if you like his books, you'll probably like this as well.

[Melissa Crytzer Fry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not generally a reader of mysteries, and frankly, I’m not sure this novel can be billed as one. It is a fabulous conglomerate: a family saga, literary fiction, historical fiction, a love story, a western, and a mystery all wrapped into one.

Admittedly, the mystery component of ‘what really happened to JB and Star that fateful day?’ (no spoilers here) kept me turning pages. But what kept me the most rapt was that this novel is told almost exclusively by what ISN’T being said between characters. Jonis Agee’s ability to show intention, thought, and emotion through facial expressions, gestures, and body language is unmatched. I’m still floored. These characters are painfully flawed and have been wronged and hurt and hurt some more. I could see these people twitch their eyes, hear the breath come from their troubled lips, feel their hesitation and heaviness of heart. Not only that, the author knows horses, and you will know them, too, by the end of this tale: how gentle and ornery and smart they are; how much finesse is required for human-horse trust. And for that matter, the author understands, intimately, the complexities of human-to-human interaction.

Agee’s descriptions of the stark landscape and the theme of humans’ quest for land were both so emotionally taut. And then, of course, the horrors of Wounded Knee are central to this book (I read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee as a college student and still shiver thinking about it). This book does such an incredible job of questioning that slippery definition of ‘history,’ based on which ‘side’ is telling the story. The novel sheds some ugly truths about this period in American history that, again, should be required reading for us all.

This is a story about mothers and sons, sons and fathers, ambition, greed, desire, the power of evil, the value of hard work. Rich in historical detail, and its own moments of breathtaking beauty, this is a wonderful character-driven novel that will hold you in its grip long after you’ve turned the last page. Love literary historical fiction? This one’s for you.

[Hana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two and a half stars, rounded up because of the beautiful descriptions of the Nebraska Sand Hills. I wanted to like this one and it has many elements that I usually enjoy: it's part family saga, part mystery with lots of historical detail. Sadly I found the non-linear story-telling rather annoying and I never liked any of the characters.

[Alicia · Rating 3 out of 5]

She stooped to pick a wild pink rose, avoiding the tiny spines that slivered like unseen glass hairs onto one's fingers. There was little scent, but the creamy softness of the petals like the insides of a dog's ear more than made up for it. She placed one on her tongue, and imagined she could taste the hills, the bittersweet tang of life.

This book started beautiful. I was completely mesmerized by the gorgeous descriptions of the prairies of Western Nebraska and Western South Dakota and the compassionate retellings of the sufferings of the Lakota Sioux. This book starts with a mystery that is one of the central conflicts of the story. The characters were complex and sketched with such subtlety and mystery that I was excited at the prospect of slowly unraveling their individual histories which led them to each moment.

She blew in like a hard west wind, the kind that dropped a man's bones to zero, froze his hair to his skull, and clogged his eyes with ice.

Dulcinea and Rose were especially compelling. A white woman from Chicago stuck out West and a sad but strong Lakota woman mourning her people drawn with such nuance and sensitivity I couldn't wait to see what Agee did with their stories.

After the halfway point, however, I felt like the book changed into something else entirely. To me, it was fairly obvious fairly quickly after they came on the scene who the murderer was. A character drawn with no subtlety, given almost no history or real motivation at all, when the Big Reveal came I was extremely disappointed to see I had been right. The ending itself was actually the biggest let down for me. I felt like it was overly melodramatic and saw the characters doing this which had previously seemed extremely out of character.

Overall, I enjoyed the writing and the descriptions of this land. I especially appreciated how Agee presented the Lakota characters, lending them gravitas and pain that can sometimes be diminished in other Westerns. I feel that this could have been an incredible Western but which lost its way at the end.

[Pat · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an engrossing family saga and murder mystery that takes place in the harsh, yet delicate Sand Hills of Nebraska in the 1880s. The sophisticated ranch wife and Lakota sister of the slain collaborate to find who murdered their loved ones. Sense of place and time are strong. The characters are complex. There are many flashbacks of various characters to the massacres at Wounded Knee and of the Ghost Dancers. The author introduces many threads and weaves them skillfully into whole cloth.

I listened to the audiobook version and did not care for the reader's style. About a third of the way in, I forgot to be bothered by having to turn the volume down and back up to modulate her voice myself.

[Faith]

I'm not a huge fan of westerns and I'm not the right person for this book. It was so slow moving and full of descriptions of the land and the horses. It would be perfect for the right audience, but not for me. I abandoned it at around the 30% point. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

[Allison Docter · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mystery set in the Sandhills? Written by a Nebraska author? Yes please! Also disappointed by how little I was taught of Native American history (in this case, Wounded Knee Massacre) during school, especially since it happened on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

[Lexie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh boy do I have thoughts about this book. This review will consist of me trying to organize them in the most readable way possible.

The only reason I finished this book was because it was the only other book I had packed with me to read on a 6 hour plane ride. I hoped, when I picked it out, that it would be a successor to East of Eden, Blood Meridian, or even something from Louise Erdrich. Instead, I got one of the worst books I've read all year.

The writing is so bad. The pronouns are not paired with their proper antecedents, and that makes the first three pages almost indecipherable--whose wife is Dulcinea? whose father is Hayward's and who is Drum?--and that problem only continues. For a book about family, generational trauma, and land ownership, you can see how that would be bad. Secondly, the descriptions of the land are boring! And I usually love that sort of thing! This book deals only in the visual imagery, and furthermore is extremely repetitive. Not only are the descriptions repeated, but I can recall three scenes off the bat that are interrupted by a surprise storm. Agee wants the land itself to be a character so bad, but then refuses to let the characters interact with it more than an object (They loved the land... whoops! surprise tornado that we must shelter from!).

The characters are so flat. I can't name a single character who changed over the course of the narrative except for maybe Drum Bennet (which, if you've read the book, is a cursed takeaway to have). Dulcinea remains a sympathetic mother who loves the land and her boys through all their issues; Rose is still a strong, quiet woman, who doesn't get to interact with her religious decisions (she literally keeps the ghost of her sister around, and we don't get to see the ramifications of that decision, either spiritually or psychologically) or her people at all, despite being held up as the spokesperson in the narrative for both. Hayward mellows out a bit, but he kind of started that way--and that's how Drum has described him the whole narrative, so it's not really a change. Percival was always shady, and Graver was always kind and accommodating. The characters are SO bland! Forgettable! And really reveal nothing about the themes of the book.

The plot/pacing was wild. We had a whole rodeo competition segment of the book, which came on so fast and unexpectedly before the climax of the narrative that readers didn't care at all about the outcome. Dulcinea's teaching was introduced--at length--then discarded. Emotional beats, like the Wounded Knee massacre, had so little narrative time spent on them that they failed to capture the horror, there. I went into this book thinking Wounded Knee would just be part of the context for the narrative (not expecting scenes by any means). The atrocities would influence characters, though not be seen directly. However, when Agee decided to flashback--when she decided to take on the mantle of capturing such a dark day--and then wrote so removed and emotionless, it really rubbed me the wrong way. Especially when her characters were all supposed to be horrified/scarred by the events. I've been more disturbed reading its Wikipedia page. And that's not good. Other than that, I couldn't even sum up what the rest of the plot was. The murder mystery is supposed to frame the story, but it really just adds disjointed elements to the narrative. Wild.

I don't even want to get into the themes, really. I don't like the way this book handled community, love, or tradition. I also didn't like what it said about those motifs. So yeah.

For 400 pages, I feel like all of these components could have been developed well. Instead, I read a mess, held together only by the most convoluted descriptions of actions.

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the historical aspects of this book. The massacre at Wounded Knee was both fascinating and horrible to read about. It's so disturbing what people can do to each other. I found myself also frustrated at Dulcinea and her actions or lack thereof. What mother lets her child be taken from her and does not spend every minute trying to get them back? What kind of mother leaves her children? I realize times were different back then, but it still makes me want to smack someone. Overall, I liked this book.

[Gloria · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are not that many novels written about the Nebraska Sandhills which is a quite unique limited geographic area of the USA. This is where my maternal ancestors settled which is why this caught my interest, but the book itself will keep anyone's interest if they are drawn to topics related to settling the West and the treatment of Native Americans.

Dulcinea is a wonderfully strong female character who must face off against a number of powerful men in order to lay claim to the ranch that her husband left her. Dealing with child abuse, extremely hard working conditions, a murder investigation, and general skulduggery, she struggles to get her two teen sons to trust and respect her while also being drawn to a man who may just touch her heart.

But this is not just about a settler family. This is ALL about the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee and I admit that I learned terrible things about this event that has always been referred to but not exactly explained. Here, a white man provides an eye witness account of the ghost dances and the atmosphere leading up to the horrible crime resulting in a mass grave of mainly women and children. This was about greed as it opened up the lands for development and a wave of white settlers soon descended upon this harsh part of the country, including my own great grandparents.

Since my mother grew up in this area in the 1930s, much of the book rings true. Wide open lands, the general fear of Native Americans, the Indian Schools where their culture was un-taught, books were precious because of their rarity, harsh weather, and very hard work.

There is a murder mystery, but it is clear pretty early on who the culprit is. Readers will probably want to shake Dulcinea and her now-dead husband J.B. for letting their sons down. Plot probably could have been shortened a bit. All that said, this is a fine and illuminating read.

[Jenni Welsch · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm a prairie girl at heart and don't know much about cattle or ranch life, but this entire book is a love letter to the land that makes up the heart of Nebraska and the various peoples who have lived on it. It's also a mystery and a who-done-it and lesson on real history and a story of family drama and female empowerment in a man's world. I loved it.

[Tiffany Jenks · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was the first western murder mystery and I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised. Agee knows how to keep the reader on their toes and spin a tale that makes you really fall for the characters.

[Teddy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bones of Paradise has a lot going for it. Set in the backdrop of the harsh 1800’s Nebraska Sand Hills, it is a western, family saga, and mystery all in one.

” J.B. Bennett, a white rancher, and Star, a young Native American woman” are found murdered on the Bennett property. J.B.’s wife, Dulcinea who had left years ago returns after his death with her friend, Rose who is also Star’s sister. They both intend to find out who is responsible for their loved ones death. Then there is J.B.’s vicious father, Drum Bennett who ran Dulcinea off, so long ago and her two sons, nearly adults. Mix in the hired hands and a wide cast of characters and it makes for an interesting story.

The Nebraska landscape is also a central character to the story as is the massacre at Wounded Knee, from flashbacks.

I found the novel dragged quite a bit for the first 60 pages but as the story and back story started to unfold, it picked up. The writing is poetic and at times, hypnotic. I have never read anything by Jonis Agee before this but hope to read more of her work in the future. Recommended.

I received the ebook version for my honest review.

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This author knows Nebraska! If you want to feel and experience the beauty and wildness of the Sandhills without traveling to the middle of America just read this book and soak in the descriptions of the land. This is a story that will grab you because of the historical references to the massacre at Wounded Knee, the relationships of the characters and the nature and animals. Jonis Agee describes in perfect detail a horse going down, a flock of red winged black birds, the motion of Cowboys working cattle. Im sure she was as diligent in her research of the historical details that makes this an exquisite book of Nebraska.
I listened to the audio book and that is one of the reasons for only a 4 star rating. The narrator had every character speak in this unnatural monotone that was ridiculous and became annoying. Also the storyline that the mother left both her children for some threat by a crazy old man is pretty unbelievable. I would read this book for the beautiful descriptions of Nebraska and the historical facts. Forget about listening to it unless you can put up with poor narration.

[Overbooked ✎ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Historical fiction (the massacre at Wounded Knee), a mystery to solve (who murdered a native girl and a local rancher) with a distinctive literary fiction flavour. I loved the descriptions of Nebraska Sandhills, the author’s writing style and the well-defined and complex characters, each one adding a layer to the story.
There are a few parts involving violence but in their vivid descriptions, the author presented the facts without dwelling on them, it did not bother me but I thought I’d better mention it.
I think the novel should have ended at 80%, when it became clear who the killer was, after that point, the tone of the book changed and spoiled it for me (with fit-for-movie romance and ending), however, I am definitely interested in reading another book by this author. 3.5 stars rounded up

[Raymund · Rating 1 out of 5]

Either the writing style is not for me, or it is just too old-fashioned for my taste. I don't feel the emotions behind the characters' motives at all. The scenes that were supposed to be intense were presented as if they're not a big deal(I understand that violence is rampant in the time setting, but they were just written blandly). The flashbacks are also very sudden and intermittent, they are too distracting. I basically forced myself to read this.

I love books that make the readers think about the characters feelings but I feel like I did too much thinking all throughout the book. It is also targeted to readers who already has a background about the west.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Riveting, brutal, and deeply powerful, this is the story of two families - one Lakota, one white - and the tragedy that links them. Agee has crafted a masterpiece with a plot that's as winding as her lyrical sentences. This story of vengeance, guilt, love, and betrayal is set ten years after the massacre at Wounded Knee, and the characters are as scarred as the land in which they dwell. I can't recommend this highly enough.

Read my full review at https://loveonlit.wordpress.com/2016/...

[Sandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a remarkable well written story that any history buff would enjoy, and should read. This is a history -mystery -western set on a family ranch in Nebraska. This story is written in wonderful descriptive detail that makes it such an interesting read, and quite different than you would expect. Jonis Agee paints a beautiful picture in her story one that is hard to put down a mystery to the end.
I received my book from Goodreads Giveaways and William Morrow, thank you for this book.

[Andi Reed · Rating 1 out of 5]

Gave up on this book initially. I couldn’t get past the writing style of the author. I really didn’t like it and just couldn’t find it in me to care about the characters or the story. When most folks in my book group rated it very highly, I decided to try to finish it. I succeeded, but I am really glad to be done. Finishing it didn’t change my opinion of the book. If anything, it has convinced me to trust myself when I think reading a book is a waste of time.

[Mary Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel is desolate and gritty yet strangely beautiful and riveting just like the Nebraska Sandhills where it is set. It is a harsh story and sometimes the cruelty of Wounded Knee was difficult to process even though it was not new info. The book really came alive for me as I had just driven through the Sandhills two weeks before I read it. I will remember this one for a long time.

[Camille McCarthy · Rating 1 out of 5]

The first five pages were written so badly that I felt no connection to the characters or the story, and I realized this was not worth my time. It reminded me of "the Gilded Hour" which was also horrible.

[nikkia neil · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not far the faint of heart or casual reader unless you are willing to stick with it and learn alot about yourself and history. Epic

[Cindy Koon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in Nebraska Sand Hills, North Platte (where we just camped), South Dakota with themes of Sioux and Lakota relations, Wounded Knee, the land, struggles of settlers, mining, ranchers, family. 1880s