Girl Flees Circus (Lynn and Lynda Miller Southwest Fiction Series)
When Katie Burke crash lands her biplane in the tiny town of Noname, New Mexico, her arrival is a catalyst for change for several of the inhabitants who rush to her aid. It’s the late 1920s. Noname has no hotel and only one main street, but it does boast a school and a lonely schoolmistress, Mabel, and the Owl Café run by Otis Jefferson, rumored to have been born a slave, and a younger white woman, Wally, who may or may not be his wife. Katie also meets Howard and his wife Louise, a couple paralyzed for the past three years after Howard’s teenage daughter ran away from home, and Leonard, a handsome young man with a talent for fixing things. Katie’s arrival shakes up these warmly rendered, complex characters and as the story behind her sudden appearance is revealed, her new friends find themselves protecting her, even as she plans to move on and leave them behind.
Girl Flees Circus is a literary, character-driven tale that evokes past times and societal injustices with subtlety and finesse. Each character grows and changes as the story unfolds, and C.W. Smith blends sharp dialogue and interior monologue to bring each person to vivid life on the page. Humorous, optimistic, moving, and believable, Girl Flees Circus portrays an America full of hard work and struggle, but also invention, hope, and human kindness. It should appeal to fans of Lynda Rutledge’s West with Giraffes.
