The “Paragraph
Ranch”, a mainstream/contemporary story is a big win for co-authors, Kay
Ellington and Barbara Brannon.
This is a tale
that anyone can relate to, as shown through the eyes of the main character,
Deanna “Dee” Bennett-Kaufman. The youngest in a family of three siblings, Dee
is a single mom of a college age daughter and charged with the temporary care
of an injured and aging mother. The problem for Dee is having to leave an
academic life she carved out in the northeast and travel back to where she was
born, the South Plains of Texas to care for her mother on the home place, the
family cotton farm where she grew up.
Dee’s challenges
begin immediately. She is a college professor and forced to walk away from the
job, straining her to get student responsibilities wrapped up from a remote
location before graduation. She is on a deadline to provide a book draft to a
publisher that she hasn’t finished writing, or even finished researching. Not
only that, but she left a boyfriend at home and worried about losing him. And, attendance
at a much anticipated writing fellowship in Massachusetts is put into jeopardy
by this familial duty. The woman has a problem.
An interesting
and tremendously entertaining metamorphosis begins from the moment her feet
land on the sandy loam of West Texas. Is it possible that this cotton farm, far
from the nearest metropolitan area, a place she sought so desperately to get
away from as a teen, can amount to more than the sum of its sandy parts?
You will enjoy
walking with Dee, discovering the answers with her. As you do, it will become
impossible not to develop an affection for, and kinship with, Dee, her family
and her friends. I believe I can safely say that anyone will see themselves at
some point in this book. It’s the type of story that will follow you days after
it’s finished. I highly recommend “The Paragraph Ranch” by Kay Ellington and
Barbara Brannon.
–Daniel
Lance Wright, author of “One Day in Lubbock”, “Phobia”, “Annie’s World: Jake’s
Legacy”, “Paradise Flawed”, “Where Are You, Anne Bonny?”, “The Last Radiant
Heart”, “Six Years’ Worth”, “Helping Hand for Ethan”
