The Scent of Rain and Lightning by Nancy Pickford

Posted December 27, 2012 by Whitney in Review / 0 Comments

The Scent of Rain and Lightning by Nancy PickfordThe Scent of Rain and Lightning
Published by Ballantine Books
Publication Date May 4, 2010
Source: Library
Genres: General Fiction
Goodreads

One beautiful summer afternoon, from her bedroom window on the second floor, Jody Linder is unnerved to see her three uncles parking their pickups in front of her parents’ house—or what she calls her parents’ house, even though Jay and Laurie Jo Linder have been gone almost all of Jody’s life. “What is this fearsome thing I see?” the young high school English teacher whispers, mimicking Shakespeare. Polished boots, pressed jeans, fresh white shirts, Stetsons—her uncles’ suspiciously clean visiting clothes are a disturbing sign.

The three bring shocking news: The man convicted of murdering Jody’s father is being released from prison and returning to the small town of Rose, Kansas. It has been twenty-six years since that stormy night when, as baby Jody lay asleep in her crib, her father was shot and killed and her mother disappeared, presumed dead. Neither the protective embrace of Jody’s uncles nor the safe haven of her grandparents’ ranch could erase the pain caused by Billy Crosby on that catastrophic night.

Now Billy Crosby has been granted a new trial, thanks in large part to the efforts of his son, Collin, a lawyer who has spent most of his life trying to prove his father’s innocence. As Jody lives only a few doors down from the Crosbys, she knows that sooner or later she’ll come face-to-face with the man who she believes destroyed her family.

What she doesn’t expect are the heated exchanges with Collin. Having grown up practically side by side in this very small town, Jody and Collin have had a long history of carefully avoiding each other’s eyes. Now Jody discovers that underneath their antagonism is a shared sense of loss that no one else could possibly understand. As she revisits old wounds, startling revelations compel her to uncover the dangerous truth about her family’s tragic past.

Engrossing, lyrical, and suspenseful, The Scent of Rain and Lightning captures the essence of small-town America—its heartfelt intimacy and its darkest secrets—where through struggle and hardship people still dare to hope for a better future. For Jody Linder, maybe even love.


The tragedy of waiting too long to write a review is that you are given time to forget, so forgive my vagueness. This was a very surprising read, I was not expecting much more than supermarket fluff and was pleasantly surprised by the intensity and depth the book entailed. Jody is a little girl lost, despite her loving Grandparents who raised her she walks around with the question “what if?” always in the back of mind. Her three uncles all keep to themselves in itself very mysterious and the well thought of Grandparents who always ask What Would Jesus Do? This band of characters equal a perfect storm. Which one is the butler? Because the butler always did it.

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