Open Road

by M.M. Holaday

After four years of adventure on the frontier,
Win Avery returns to his hometown
on the edge of the prairie and tracks
down his childhood friend, Jeb Dawson.
Jeb has just lost his parents, and Win
persuades his friend to travel west with
him—to see the frontier before it is settled,
while it is still unspoiled wilderness.
They embark on a free-spirited adventure,
but they are sidetracked when they
befriend Meg Jameson, an accomplished
horsewoman, lost on the Nebraska
prairie. Traveling together through the
Rocky Mountain foothills, they run into
Gray Wolf, an Arapaho determined to
live on his own terms off the reservation.
As their paths and purposes converge,
the course of each of their lives changes
forever. Although the open road continues
to call to Win, and Meg moves
forward with her plans to ranch with
the aged liveryman who raised her, the
bonds between the four friends endure
as they fight the forces striving to close
the frontier and as they witness a way of
life disappear.

Genres: Historical Fiction

445 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 19, 2017

About the author

In The Open Road, two young men head west for adventure and to see the unspoiled wilderness. Along the way, they meet a horsewoman with plans to own a ranch, and an Arapaho determined to live on his own terms off the reservation. Their paths and purposes converge, and the bonds of friendship tie their fates together as they witness the frontier close and a way of life disappear.

A Minnesota native, M. M. Holaday took a trip West with her parents at the age of 10, fell in love with cross-country travel, and aspired to be part of the production crew for the “On the Road with Charles Kuralt” segments she watched on the CBS Evening News. The pipe dream lingered into young adulthood as she crisscrossed the US from the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness area in Idaho to Padre Island in Texas, and from Sabino Canyon in Arizona to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Road trips are still her favorite way to travel.

M. M. Holaday is a graduate of St. Olaf College and the University of Minnesota Graduate School of Library Science and has worked as a reference and rare book librarian. In more recent years, however, she and her husband have managed acreage of tall grass prairie on their Missouri farm, encouraging the warm season grasses made up of species like big bluestem, indiangrass, switchgrass, and little bluestem to grow. When she isn’t writing, you’ll find her chopping back the thorn-covered honey locust trees which aggressively encroach upon their prairie.

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a beautiful story of the American frontier, well researched, and as sweeping as the landscape it portrays. The juxtaposition of the idyllic picture of hardworking, happy settlers with the ugliness of displacing a Native American population facing devastating cultural loss is handled well and is the most compelling part of the book. I wish the narration had been a little closer to the characters so I might have felt their successes and losses more deeply, but I did find the characters endearing and their stories reached satisfying endings. I would think any fan of frontier historical fiction would be pleased with this very touching book.

[Jean · Rating 5 out of 5]

I do enjoy western novels and The Open Road proved to be a warm and embracing read that took me over the plains and into the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The book introduces characters who you grow to love and follows our country’s history pointing out both its greatness and its failures as the west was settled. I enjoyed this story and even cried at one point - that is when I know an author really pulled me in! This is Ms. Holaday’s first novel and it is a great read.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I throughly enjoyed this debut novel. Beautifully written story!

[Sumner Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good book. I looked for more at the end, though. Read my entire review on Amazon.

[Frank Breitenstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very entertaining book about the west.

[OnceUponATime · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m an historical fiction buff, though frontier fiction isn’t normally my genre. What I like are stories with an underlying message, and I read for descriptive precision of language. I got these in The Open Road. This story about a triangle of friendship skirts being a western romance, though it does prop up a hidden romance of a different type: pining the loss of the frontier and “what might have been” if everyone had at the time put a value on natural wilderness and a positive relationship with the American Indian. In historical fiction, there are always interesting tidbits to be learned as well. When a book sends me to Google to try to find out if something or someone was fact or author's imagination, that's a good sign. This is a very good debut by M.M. Holaday.