The Star Garden: A Novel of Sarah Agnes Prine

Told in the form of a diary, Turner's third Sarah Agnes Prine novel is set in 1906 in the Arizona Territory, with 43-year-old Sarah widowed and living in a house built by the man she had refused to marry, Rudolfo Maldonado. Her former hired help, Rudolfo is now one of the richest and most unscrupulous men in the territory. Sarah, the mother of several grown boys and the center of her large clan, is being courted by her neighbor, Udell Hanna, and though she is attracted to him, she is not so sure she wants another husband. The novel bustles with a large cast and period western atmospherics. Turner also depicts a host of domestic and frontier dramas (family strife, concerns about bandits, border disputes). Sarah's independent streak and sometimes wily nature will endear her to contemporary readers. Part western, part romance, part imagined history of the evolution of American womanhood, the novel is well researched and manages to be at once entertaining and thoughtful. (Sept.)