This tale of rangeland life has a feel of the 'Little
House' books, in that the adventure consists of a young
couple marrying and making a home for themselves in Utah.
Catana from an orphanage marries Bo the son of a printer,
and with his inheritance they buy a sheep farm and settle
in to raise a family, more considerate of the feelings of
others than the others are of their feelings.
The title NEVER YOURS comes from Bo's father telling him
that if offered a free meal, he must earn it by washing the
dishes - anything unearned is never yours. We meet Bo Giles
first in a doctor's office getting a cheap tonsillectomy
and his full name is not told to us so I'm guessing it's
Beauregard. Here he sets eyes on the love of his life,
whom he weds after a nineteen-day courtship. Much later in
the book we get the date of 1917. Details are in some
places provided and in others not, so the tale can be hard
to pin down, or fills pages with conversation devoid of
more than one line of setting. Coyotes raid the flock after
the first three easy years, and a local lady's library is
also raided, so living is not trouble-free. Then a bunch
of swindlers try buying up local ranches and they're not
averse to using threats.
The main problem I had with this book was pinning down the
reader age for whom it was written. The style comes across as
for a twelve-year-old who's read Laura Ingalls
Wilder. Sheep are described to us as "Mr and Mrs and all
the cute little babies impersonating mammals in training."
The content however would not enthuse youngsters after the
first few chapters of adult chat, baby raising and sheep
farming, some of which the author says were stories told to
her by her parents when she entered a competition to write
a novel. These varied and interesting tales might be more
relevant to seniors who want to recall old times. Now
she's got the first novel out of the way, I hope Connie
Smith settles down to pick an audience in the more
accustomed modern style, as I'm sure she has a lot more
stories to tell.
This is about the story of a family who lived on a sheep
ranch between 1910 and 1926. Times were hard for most
people who lived at that time, but there were still "good
honest morals" practiced, which were handed down from one
generation to another. This is one family's story of their
world of love, problems, and promises.
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