Sometimes life is just too unfair -- almost unconscionable and simply terribly sad. What can you do when conditions are unstable and the odds are stacked against you? When there are no good choices -- actually when there are no viable choices at all. Your fate and that of your child is in the hands of someone that is just shy of a monster.

Perhaps an even worse scenario is that there is no way out -- no way to catch a break and maybe just walk away unbroken -- un-shattered -- in one piece. The best revenge is to beat the odds and sometimes you need a little help to do just that.

RIDE A PAINTED PONY by Kathleen Eagle starts out with a punch to the gut. RIDE A PAINTED PONY opens to a horrible scene and matters escalate from there. Somehow what appeared so harsh and scary manages to get worse. Candidly Kathleen Eagle paints a bleak picture -- dare we hope for a glimpse of sun amidst all this darkness.

The reader keeps wondering if there is any way Lauren's world could get back on an even keel. Lauren who was literally thrown away like yesterday's trash. Bruised and battered and left for dead. But Lauren couldn't die. Somehow this brave industrious mother had to find a way back into that perilous place that disposed of her so callously. Lauren left something important behind, something vital, someone who needed Lauren alive. Lauren had been thrown away but her baby Joey was still in the grips of the same man who ordered her death.

And that's when Lauren met her savior Nick Red Shield -- a big tough as leather ex-military, oil rigger -- Indian. Nick just happened to be at the right place at the right time. No that vastly underestimates the importance of Nick finding Lauren. Lauren was an absolute mess. In worse shape than most strays and Nick finds himself in a very foreign position. A place where Nick has to feel again -- something he has fought hard to avoid. But with Lauren Nick discovers that the part he has guarded fiercely is now being exposed to something he thought he would never experience. Caring and dare he say love.

Kathleen Eagle brings living on a reservation to life with her ability to make each scene rich and important. There's something almost poetic in the way Kathleen Eagle describes the land so very vital to Native Americans and basic to their rich heritage. Something as simple as the synergy of plants and animals is as beautiful to read as witness on the open range. That's Eagle's goal -- to have you appreciate this in its entirety. RIDE A PAINTED PONY is beautiful even when enmeshed in a difficult story filled with its' share of ugliness.