Readers will fall in love with A Horse Brought Us Here by author Dershie McDevitt. The story focuses on a group of teenagers living in rural Juniper, Wyoming in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It is told from the perspectives of Nella Fortune and Rob Hitchcock. At the beginning of the book, readers learn that Nella’s best friends are BJ and Midge. BJ has just won the Homecoming Queen crown. Then tragedy strikes and BJ dies. The people of Juniper cannot believe that the most popular girl from the wealthiest family in town was stung by a wasp and died.
A Horse Brought Us Here sheds light on BJ’s passing as readers find out what happened during the days leading up to her death from Nella and Rob, BJ’s boyfriend. The story is heartwrenching, to say the least, and readers will be filled with emotion and the need to understand what truly happened the day BJ died.
The characters in this book will take readers back to their teenage years as the dialogue is realistic and natural. The girls talk about boys, kissing, sex, and the upcoming homecoming dance. The boys talk about beer, football practice, and club initiations. The interactions between the characters are descriptive and easy to picture as the plot moves along. I loved the relationship that Rob had with BJ. Although they’re young, they truly love each other and I felt that Rob would have done anything for BJ.
Readers will be brought back in time to when there were no cell phones or computers. Families had supper together and went to church together. There is also an element of Native American lore as BJ’s uncle and aunt live on their family’s land and BJ often visits them. Her uncle, Standing Elk, knows things that no one else would know and BJ finds comfort in visiting him.
McDevitt does a fantastic job of steadily feeding readers information about what led up to BJ’s death that, although shocking in a jaw-dropping plot twist, it kept the story interesting and engaging the whole way through. A Horse Brought Us Here is a book in a class all its own. Readers who enjoy historical fiction or period piece fiction will enjoy this superb novel about a tragedy that shakes a small town and changes the lives of those in it forever.
