“Recently orphaned eighteen-year-old Esther Chambers heads west to Century, Oregon to live with her only living relative, distant cousin and cattle rancher Ferris Pickett. As Esther stakes a claim on Ferris’s behalf alongside a small lake, she learns the ways of frontier life as well as the politics of the local town. In Century, the cattle ranchers and sheepherders battle for land. This war is at times as subtle as a social snub at a dance, and at others as dangerous as murder.
Esther develops feeling for a young sheepherder, throwing her loyalty to her cousin into question. As she learns more about the stakes at hand, and the men who control these stakes, she realizes that she has to pick a side.
A great story along the lines of Ivan Doig’s The Whistling Season and Molly Gloss’s The Hearts of Horses, this eastern Oregon tale is a great summer read!”—Sylla, Third Street Books, McMinnville. Buy Little Century from Third Street Books. Keesey will kick off her book tour at Third Street Books June 14 at 6:30 pm.