Wurth (The Darkwater Liar’s Account) combines skillful prose with down-to-earth characters in this story of the harsh realities faced by three children in early-1900s Nebraska. Abandoned by her parents at age four, Margaret Rose Grady spends her childhood in a dreary orphanage in Darkwater Creek, Nebr., until, at age 12, she is taken in by a quiet man who wants her to care for his children and his sick wife. Margaret Rose befriends Kuruk, a Pawnee boy who has run away from the white man’s attempts to “civilize” him and strip him of his heritage at the Genoa school, and Jack, son of the rich, unscrupulous widower Albert Hollingwood. Together, the three survive deadly storms and an influenza outbreak, and witness the ruthless machinations of Jack’s father, a railroad magnate who will do anything to get what he wants. Despite these challenges, the three children work to maintain their connection with one another and struggle through adolescence together. Wurth writes in an appealing prose (“I... step into the freshly fallen night, so deep violet the lilacs dissolve into it”), and her fully realized characters are unique and distinct. This series launch is an auspicious beginning. (BookLife)