When your first novel sells about fifteen million copies across the world, has been the number one bestseller in about 20 countries, has been translated into 36 languages, and gets made into a movie, starring, produced and directed by Robert Redford, is there a point to trying again? Seriously, if you were Nicholas Evans, author of The Horse Whisperer would you really think you could do it again?
Luckily for readers everywhere, Evans did try again. In each subsequent novel Evans succeeds in creating characters and stories that, while very different from Grace, her family, Pilgrim, and Tom Booker, are of the same depth and caliber.
In his latest, The Brave, Tom Bedford is bumbling his way through life. He’s divorced, estranged from his son Danny, and has never revealed the upheavals and violence suffered during his childhood to anyone. When Danny is charged with murder while on tour in Iraq, Tom’s past breaks the surface, forcing him to remember what he has long forgotten.
Fans of Picoult and Bojhalian might appreciate Evans’ examination of regular people under pressure.