Bones of Paradise, Jonis Agee
Bones of Paradise, Jonis Agee
2 Rating(s)
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Bones of Paradise
A Novel

Author: Jonis Agee

Narrator: Christina Traister

Unabridged: 14 hr 28 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 08/02/2016


Synopsis

The award-winning author of The River Wife returns with a multigenerational family saga set in the unforgiving Nebraska Sand Hills 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 Seventh Cavalry massacred more than two hundred 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: J.B.’s cunning and hard father, Drum; his estranged wife, Dulcinea; and his teenage sons, Cullen and Hayward. As the mystery of these twin deaths unfolds, the history of the dysfunctional Bennetts and their damning secrets is 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 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.

About Jonis Agee

Jonis Agee has been praised by the New York Times Book Review as “a gifted poet of that dark lushness in the heart of the American landscape.” She is the award-winning author of twelve books, including the New York Times Notable Books of the Year Sweet Eyes and Strange Angels. Her awards include the John Gardner Fiction Award, the George Garrett Award, a National Endowment for the Arts grant in fiction, a Loft-McKnight Award, a Loft-McKnight Award of Distinction, and two Nebraska Book Awards. A native of Nebraska, Agee teaches at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Will on August 21, 2024

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......more

Goodreads review by karen on May 12, 2019

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 roo......more

Goodreads review by Angela M on August 07, 2016

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 m......more

Goodreads review by Melissa on March 15, 2017

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 happen......more