Status Updates From Augusta Locke: A Novel

Slow, winding prose. They are filled with the specter of beauty, but cumbersome, and plodding. Gussie is inquisitive, compassionate, more thoroughly loving of her parents than they seem to be of her, filled with youthful wonder, and a lover of the outdoors. Her world is a magical one filled with ravens, and deer, and groves, and sweet ladies, and rude cattlemen. And she, the undaunted fledgling, seeks her own path.

The first chapter was breath-taking. Henderson painted a lively and lovely world in nuanced strokes, illuminating Bomber Basin as a world of small wonders and delicate treasures. The syntax was complex and elegant. The diction effortlessly conveyed the heart of Bomber Basin and why it is such a draw for Gussie. A practice I both admire, and long to perfect in my own writing. Wonderful opening.

"No man is going to hire you on. No man is going to understand the needs of your child. No man is going to give you a room, love your child as you love her. This is her home. You're not going anywhere. No man is going to love you, not after what you've done."

"The whole storm came down on us. The sun was gone. There was a thrill on the boy's face. But then we were struck apart. I didn't know what I saw. A light flashed on his body. The light lifted him and took him away. The light was so close that it was like it came from inside my own eyes. The boy was gone. I couldn't see him. My soles burned."

"We have Gussie. That's what comes of you. You're more beautiful than any woman, but something inside you brought us Gussie. Not the child I expected." And Gussie loosened her grip, slid down from the sumac. And she watched the moon leave the window, the stars swirl. And she tried the words, tried them on her tongue, to see if the words would fit the shape of her mouth. "We have Gussie... That's what comes of you..."

She just got he rmoney stolen, poor Gussie

And I'm not sure what the book is about yet, need to keep reading