When fourteen-year-old Carson Fielding bought his first horse from Magnus Yarborough, it became clear that the teenager was a better judge of horses than the rich landowner was of humans. Years later, Carson, now a skilled and respected horse trainer, grudgingly agrees to train Magnus's horses and teach his wife to ride. But as Carson becomes disaffected with the power-hungry Magnus, he also grows more and more attracted to the rancher's wife, and their relationship sets off a violent chain of events that unsettles their quiet reservation border town in South Dakota. Thrown into the drama are Earl Walks Alone, an Indian trying to study his way out of the reservation and into college, and Willi, a German exchange student confronting his family's troubled history. In this unforgettable story of horses, love, and life, Carson and the entire ensemble of characters learn, in very different ways, about the strong bonds that connect people to each other and to the land on which they live. *Starred Review* Twisted Tree, South Dakota, may be small, but it's large enough to foment epic conflicts as Meyers, building on the emotional plentitude found in The Light in the Crossing (1999), sets in motion finely realized characters and explores our complex attachments to place and family. Carson, a loner known for his horse-training skills, reluctantly agrees to work for Magnus, a wealthy, land-grabbing neighbor, then gets dangerously involved with Magnus' young wife. Earl Walks Alone, a mathematically gifted Lakota high-school student, dreams of a college scholarship and escape from Twisted Tree and is surprised to find himself befriending a German exchange student, Willi, who seeks to redress his dark and appalling inheritance through immersion in Lakota culture. These three misfits, backed by a terrifically vital cast of secondary characters, eventually conspire to rescue a trio of abused horses, and their good chemistry and wild schemes, played out against the glorious landscape, illuminate much that is intrinsic to human nature. Meyers, imaginative and equally attuned to uniqueness and universality, awakens sorrow, compassion, and wonder in this vivid, covertly metaphysical, and viscerally dramatic novel of tragic cultural legacies, personal valor, and boundary-dispelling revelations. Donna Seaman Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved KENT MEYERS is the author of The RiverWarren, The Light in the Crossing, and Witness of Combines. He lives in Spearfish, South Dakota, where he teaches at Black Hills State University. Kent Meyers teaches literature and writing at Black Hills State University.