Nightflower of Comanche Mound is a story for young adults, but, surprisingly, it’s adults who are buying it.
I didn’t set out to write the novel that evolved. It started with a girl and a horse on a ranch in West Texas, a girl some younger. Research took me on a very different path as sixteen year-old Charley revealed her own voice: one of silence, of wariness, and, ultimately of survival, when her set of expectations result in painful disappointments, and she’s forced to assert herself to save a blind horse.
For young adult readers, the story is one of discovery, while for adults—both men and women—it’s the recognition of life experiences and events that define us. Nightflower of Comanche Mound lives in the space between the literal and the symbolic—something you can see, but in order to understand, you must feel.
The nightflower is a symbol of beauty, survival, and darkness, while the Llano Estacado—The Texas Staked Plains—personifies the harsh realities, hard times, and all that lies beneath the surface. Adults, I think, find ground there because life’s encounters have brought to us such places. And that’s exactly where sixteen-year old Charley Kensey finds herself stumbling.
If you love Heartland, if you love True Grit, Nightflower of Comanche Mound is a book for you.
