06/01/2014
Mapson performs certain kinds of literary acrobatics with this stand-alone novel. Winding together characters from Solomon's Oak (2010), Finding Casey (2012), and one of her very earliest, Blue Rodeo (1994), she takes her readers on a journey of rediscovery. Like riding through a hometown neighborhood, familiarity calls memories to mind even as characters have grown and changed over the years. Our eponymous heroine is Skye Elliot, fresh from rehab and desperately trying to locate her four-year-old daughter and regain custody. Her first step is finding a ride out of rehab. Margaret Yearwood is struggling to come to terms with a diagnosis of MS when her son Peter appears with plenty of his own troubles and the same rage he exhibited as a teenager. The intersection of lives and families is revelatory and a catalyst for hope and healing. VERDICT Longtime fans of Mapson will be delighted to see their favorite characters meet; readers of Jodi Picoult and Anita Shreve would be well rewarded. Mapson does an incredible job of bringing together beloved characters from past novels without leaving newcomers in the cold. [See Prepub Alert, 1/28/14.]—Julie Kane, Sweet Briar Coll. Lib., VA
05/12/2014
This moving 12th novel from Mapson (Finding Casey) explores the importance of fresh starts among a group of people in New Mexico, some of them familiar from Mapson’s previous novels. Sara Kay “Skye” Elliot leaves a rehab clinic, which she’d entered to deal with her alcohol and drug problem, to find that her rodeo rider husband, Rocky—a fellow addict—and four-year-old daughter, Gracie, have vanished. Instead, she is met by her father, Owen, who arrives on horseback, leading alongside him Skye’s beloved horse, Lightning. Determined to make amends for abandoning Skye when she was 12, Owen helps her search for Gracie. In the process, they reconnect with Owen’s true love, painter Margaret Yearwood. She has her own problems, including death, multiple sclerosis, and painful family secrets. Mapson delves deeply into the messy, complex relationships between these people, while rendering the New Mexico landscape so beautifully that it emerges as an additional member of the cast. She has a particularly strong feel for human-animal bonds, creating four-legged (and in one unfortunate case, three-legged) characters that are as distinctive as the human variety. Agent: Deborah Schneider, Gelfman Schneider Agency. (July)
Jo-Ann Mapson specializes in life's lost-and-found, stories of broken hearts, broken people, broken families - but never without the hope of being made whole. Owen's Daughter may be her best work so far, for it's about a grown child who has gone wrong, and done wrong, very wrong, but who learns that in order to be forgiven, she has to forgive. Again, Jo-Ann Mapson proves that she is the heart of the West.” —Jacquelyn Mitchard, bestselling author of The Deep End of the Ocean
“I love Jo-Ann Mapson's voice, She speaks with a plain beautiful truth and tells a story that breaks your heart with its simplicity of expression and complexity of feeling. Owen's Daughter may be her very best novel yet, a pleasure from first page to last.” —Mark Childress, bestselling author of Georgia Bottoms and Crazy in Alabama
“Owen's Daughter by Jo-Ann Mapson isn't a book; it's a destination, people with old friends and intriguing strangers. The story is so full of truth and life that you want to dig your feels in and refuse to leave.” —Judith Ryan Hendricks, bestselling author of Bread Alone
“Reuniting cherished characters from Solomon's Oak (2010) and Finding Casey (2012), Mapson introduces yet another fetching cast of fragile yet resilient personalities who warmly work their ways into readers' hearts.” —Booklist
“Moving . . . Mapson delves deeply into the messy, complex relationships between [characters], while rendering the New Mexico landscape so beautifully that it emerges as an additional member of the cast. She has a particularly strong feel for human-animal bonds, creating four-legged (and in one unfortunate case, three-legged) characters that are as distinctive as the human variety.” —Publishers Weekly
“Mapson performs certain kinds of literary acrobatics with this stand-alone novel . . . The intersection of lives and families is revelatory and a catalyst for hope and healing. Longtime fans of Mapson will be delighted to see their favorite characters meet; readers of Jodi Picoult and Anita Shreve would be well rewarded. Mapson does an incredible job of bringing together beloved characters from past novels without leaving newcomers in the cold.” —Library Journal
“The beauty of Owen's Daughter, the 12th and latest novel by Santa Fe's own Jo-Ann Mapson, is the realistic pathos of the human condition experienced by characters who could live right next door. If you're human, you can't help but relate to it. What could be more suspenseful than parent-child relationships, life-changing health conditions, fragile or broken love connections, and the steep climb out of the abyss of addiction? These travails, set against a Santa Fe backdrop so vivid that the city becomes a mood instead of a star on a map, besiege characters so rich and well developed that the reader can visualize each one.” —The Santa Fe New Mexican
“Mapson has provided a series of glimpses of a quirky, damaged, always-interesting community in the old part of Santa Fe . . . [She] writes women lovingly and complexly.” —San Francisco Book Review
“[Santa Fe] and the New Mexico landscape are as vividly written as the many characters. Artists are everywhere; the winds bring grit and the scent of piñon and sage. Mapson integrates the many cultures, galleries, and gourmet markets with a sense of history that runs like a current just below modern life . . . A story that will appeal to those interested in exploring the bonds of people to family, animals, and the land, as well as to those who enjoy a love story.” —New Mexico Magazine
2014-05-22
Characters from three previous novels—Solomon’s Oak, Finding Casey and Blue Rodeo—merge in Mapson’s latest, featuring a young mother and an older woman who must cope with unforeseen challenges.Skye Elliot was once an excellent student who dreamed of becoming a veterinarian, but a rodeo circuit rider named Rocky, an unplanned pregnancy and a substance abuse problem derailed her ambitions. Fresh from a long stint in rehab, all Skye now wants is to reclaim her daughter and get a job, but she’s taken off guard when her ex-husband doesn’t pick her up as expected. Instead, her long-absent father—who’s rechristened himself Owen Garret—collects her from the clinic in the New Mexico desert with her beloved horse in tow, and Skye has no choice but to join him. As they embark upon a journey underscored by Skye’s anger toward her parents and her frantic search for her daughter, Gracie, Owen offers a straightforward explanation for his extended silence: He was in prison. Skye’s resentment begins to dissipate as she views Owen, and eventually others, from a different perspective, but her search for her child hits several obstacles: namely, a broken-down car and a lack of money. Pausing briefly to retrieve Owen’s old dog, they finally land in Santa Fe, where, unbeknownst to Owen, his lost love now lives. Painter Margaret Yearwood has recently been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and worried as she is about her ability to cope with the future, she's even more concerned about her adult son. Peter has been deaf since 15 and has recently gotten a cochlear implant, but he suffers from other demons, including a broken marriage and a drinking problem. Mapson connects each character via a ghost’s intervention, intuitive animals and a couple’s new venture, but the narrative loses clarity and stalls with the introduction of multiple back stories.Despite many positive components, including vivid descriptions of New Mexico’s rich culture; endearing dogs and horses; and an inspirational message about surmounting shortcomings, the novel’s lumbering pace outweighs all.
