Lawyers in Hell

From Ecowomen.net: "A beautiful and haunting tale about generations connected by livelihood and place, Ford evokes the great books by Kingsolver and Steinbeck. Lush prose, conflicted characters so vividly drawn you would recognize them passing them on the street, and a gorgeous taste of environmental debate. Ford never gets pedantic, but blends thoughtful reflection and the urgency of fighting fires both metaphoric and literal in this expertly written novel." Author Rachel Devenish Ford presents a debut novel rich with depth and insight of emotion and need. Molly Boscelli, a goat farmer in the hills of Humboldt County, California, is fighting an approaching forest fire with sheer force of will. She and her husband Jack inherited their sweeping piece of land in the hills from Molly's mother, Catherine, ten years before, and the years have been a long slope of resentment for Molly, called back to a place that is teeming with reminders of her inability to live up to her mother's legend. With the threat of fire, things begin to accelerate. The couple can't seem to get the help they need from the state fire department. Molly teeters on the brink of exhaustion and Jack is eaten by worry that her fragile mental health won't hold up under the strain. The couple's grown children, together with Catherine, rejoin them at the ranch.Catherine is old now, and drawn far into memories of her life in the hills with her settler father and Native American mother. As Catherine digs deep into her past to find the healing both she and Molly need, Molly comes to understand the true depth of feeling she has for the ranch, gaining determination to take extreme measures to defend it.