Go As A River by Shelley Read

My Rating: 4.7

Set in 1960's Colorado. Victoria Nash is only 17 years old and runs the household on her family’s peach farm in the small ranch town of Iola, Colorado. She is the sole surviving female in a family of troubled men. Wilson Moon is a young drifter with a mysterious past, displaced from his tribal land and determined to live as he chooses. Victoria encounters Wil by chance on a street corner, a meeting that profoundly alters both of their young lives, unknowingly igniting as much passion as danger. When tragedy strikes, Victoria leaves the only life she has ever known. She flees into the surrounding mountains where she struggles to survive in the wilderness with no clear notion of what her future will bring. As the seasons change, she also charts the changes in herself, finding in the beautiful but harsh landscape the meaning and strength to move forward and rebuild all that she has lost, even as the Gunnison River threatens to submerge her homeland―its ranches, farms, and the beloved peach orchard that has been in her family for generations.

This is beautifully written and captures a lot of emotion on a wide variety of topics: racism, family strife, and the town of Iola being submerged. This is my first book by this author but it won't be my last.