Plot: In the early hours of the morning after Valentine’s Day, fourteen-year-old Gloria Ramírez appears on the front porch of Mary Rose Whitehead’s ranch house, broken and barely alive. The teenager had been viciously attacked in a nearby oil field—an act of brutality that is tried in the churches and barrooms of Odessa before it can reach a court of law. When justice is evasive, the stage is set for a showdown with potentially devastating consequences.

Sounds intense right? This book was SO good. Although it sounds like it is going to be focused on Gloria, the book is about so much more than that. It’s about ALL the girls/women in Odessa, Texas in the 1970s. A time and place where men dominated everything, this is the story gives women a voice.

The book is heavily character driven (in case you hadn’t guessed!) each chapter alternates between several different women’s point of views - which I loved. I think my favourite was that of Mary Rose.

Beautifully written, pulls at your heartstrings, full of brave and courageous female characters - a must add to your TBR.

Up on blog next week

Wow what a debut. If this is what this author comes out with for her first novel, I can't wait to see what she comes out with next.

I found out so much about life in Texas and the Texanan wildlife. The writing is so vivid you can feel the relentless heat and taste the dust. The actual story is quite simple but the characters it concerns are very well described and completely 3 dimensional. This is a polished well written debut novel which has a strong social conscience.

Valentine is Elizabeth Wetmore's debut novel and, in my opinion, one of this year's must-reads.⁠
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It's February 1976 in Odessa, Texas, and 14-year-old Gloria Ramírez has just been viciously attacked in an oil field. When she shows up on Mary Rose Whitehead's doorstep, she's barely alive.⁠ As Gloria's story travels around town, people quickly decide she's lying - and that her attacker, the young son of a pastor, is innocent.⁠
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Told from the perspective of different women, this book is a portrait of Odessa in the 70s - a white men's town where men die in all kinds of circumstances, but women are almost always killed by their husbands or strangers.⁠
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Valentine is definitely one of my favorite books of the year so far. It's a slow, character-driven read with complex backstories and moments you won't be able to forget any time soon. It's a story about gender, class, race, and the way they sometimes decide your destiny.⁠
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The author does a wonderful job of putting the reader in the character's shoes, creating a strong connection that makes you feel (and fear) for them. The women are all fascinating in their own way, representations of the complex roles we play throughout our lives and the fearlessness with which we assume each of them. Reading the book, it was interesting to see that none of the characters felt safe - you couldn't really trust the husband, the lawyer, the neighbor. ⁠All of them had to face life alone, in some way.⁠
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It's not an easy read, and don't let the title fool you - it's far from being Valentine's-day-romantic. But it's still a love letter to the strong women who, in towns and countries led by men, have long been the invisible, undeterred backbone of any community. ⁠

I absolutely loved and devoured this book. I hated having to put it down. The writing was so compelling I had to shake myself back into reality whenever I stopped reading.

In this book and in this writer's style I have found my favourite author. I'm already looking forward to what Wetmore will do next.

I have no words to describe this beautifully written, emotionally engaging, heart warming, sometimes heart- wrenching and downright engaging story, but I will recommend it wherever I go. Just read it! Now.

There is no doubting the quality of descriptive passages in this book but too many characters made it seem like I never really got to the detail of their individual stories that I wanted.

I was very surprised to learn that this is a debut but I found Valentine to be a great book held back by a little too much ambition. So many authors seem to rely on multiple perspectives, or shifting back and forth through time. It's a potential pitfall, especially for a new writer, and in this case I did feel that a more straightforward approach would have made more sense. Everything about this book is evocative, from the grand Texas landscapes to the connections between the characters that we meet. At the mid way point I did feel a bit of a pacing slump and my attention wasn't as readily held, possibly because at times it is hard to digest such a brutal story. But this is still a good book by an emerging new talent and I would happily recommend it to fans of the genre.

I did not enjoy this book as much as I thought I would. I was expecting more of the story to be based around Glory and what happened to her but this was not the case. I found it quite complicated and the lack of speech marks unhelpful.

Complex tale with lots of sub stories woven in. Found it hard to bring them all together,very detailed and complicated.

My thanks to 4th Estate for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘Valentine’ by Elizabeth Wetmore in exchange for an honest review.

Hey there, Valentine...

‘Valentine’ opens with a harrowing incident. On the evening of Valentine’s Day, 1976 in Odessa, Texas 14-year old Gloria Ramírez is brutally raped in an oil field. She is the daughter of a Mexican immigrant and her attacker, the son of a preacher, is, according to people in town, ‘a good kid’, who “always been one hundred percent respectful to the local girls.” Sure he is. However, as readers we have seen his true nature.

The rape is the pivotal event of this novel. However, rather than focus on it, the narrative becomes very anecdotal bouncing between the perspectives of various women of the town. While there is nothing wrong with this as such, I found that I struggled to keep focus.

It is quite clear that Odessa, on the verge of an oil boom, is a very male dominated society. There’s no women’s liberation movement or disco here. No quotation marks either.

Not all the men in the story are misogynistic creeps. There is Jesse, a gentle young homeless veteran, who is befriended by ten year old, Debra Ann, whose has been abandoned by her mother and is running feral.

After a great deal of meandering through the middle of the novel, I found that during the final third I reengaged with the plot and characters. There the focus returns to the crime and the court case associated with it. It’s not surprising that the case triggers racist and xenophobic reactions in the community, a situation that sadly is still prevalent today given the current political climate in this part of the USA.

I did find that the final section of the novel pulled together well and improved my overall impression of this assured debut novel.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

VALENTINE

by
Elizabeth Wetmore

The astounding opening of this book guarantees to grip the reader. It is the crux, the centre around which the whole book revolves. Set in Texas near the Mexican border the writing is so graphic the reader can smell and feel the grit and the dust of an oil producing region.
Glory, a skinny Mexican girl on the brink of becoming a woman, accepts a lift from a truck driver. After a night of horrific suffering she manages to drag her bruised and battered body to a remote farmhouse and plead for help. The shock of discovering the near death state of Glory shook Mary Rose, the farmer’s wife, and haunted her for the rest of her life. The guilt never left her that perhaps her reaction had not been adequate.
An emotional and heart rending read, this is a harrowing tale that will stay in this reader’s mind for a very long time.
Judging by appearance is something we are all guilty of and this book highlights how in the 1970s racism, snobbery and misjudgment were rife . Opinions in the small town involved in the trial are divided. The similarity to the recent publicity of the ‘he said, she said’ discussion means that this beautifully tight written book, is certain to stimulate much discussion.
The characters are wonderful, clear and well defined. The writing is tight with never a surplus word creating a clear image of the environment as the oil industry is in its embryo stage.
Hard to imagine this is a first novel, so skilled is the writer. Perhaps inspired by the work of JD Salinger?

It is almost impossible to believe that this is Elizabeth Wetmore’s debut novel; it is just staggering.

Remember when you read Grapes of Wrath or To Kill a Mockingbird; how you felt a reaction that jarred in your soul? Remember when you read stories of great injustice; of men’s propensity to violence against women; the horror of social injustice and the deep resonating sadness of life for those in the margins? Many of these stories flow from times distant, but this, this is the 70’s – a time when I was in my 20’s – relatively recently. Do we learn: who knows?

Set in West Texas in 1976 Wetmore’s descriptions of the landscape and those who inhabit, both human and flora and fauna is woven intricately to reveal a bleak, unforgiving place that swings from harsh, unremitting heat where land and people are scorched, to freezing, hard earth which becomes flooded and turned into swamp – permeated with the putrid smell of oil. A difficult place to breath. Even though there are places of beauty here, sought out by Potter and Corrine, I found it difficult to perceive that beauty, except, perhaps, the descriptions of the sky – magnificent. It put me in mind of Wuthering Heights: I could never feel the beauty of the moors.

But beauty abounds in Valentine and it heartens the soul. It is found in an abandoned child who befriends an injured man. It is found in Mary Rose who will not be put down by the racist, gun-toting good ole boys; the men who inhabit the camps set up for the workers in the oil fields or derricks. It is found in Corrine who mourns the death of Potter her husband. Underpinning all this is the poison of a little Mexican girl who was raped and brutalised and surely would have been murdered but for one lone individual (aided by another) who would not back down. Where were the women to support Corrine – surely they were cowering in the corner afraid to have the focus on them. Who can blame them, not me?

I have no doubt, no doubt whatsoever this book is going to create a storm. How can it not, it is heart-breaking and tears will do it no justice? I am profoundly moved and profoundly grateful that Elizabeth Wetmore created Valentine, it will resonate with me for many, many years.

A heartfelt thank you to the author, publishers and NetGalley for providing an ARC via my Kindle in return for an honest review.

Thank you, 4th Estate, and NetGalley for a copy of Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore.
It’s 1976 in Odessa, West Texas. On a brink of an oil rush. 14-year-old girl Gloria Ramirez is raped on Valentines night. She is a daughter of a Mexican immigrant. So, there is no rush to find out who is responsible. Odessa is a male orientated land and rumours and one of them say that she consented. But the poor girl came home that night seriously battered and scarred for life. This story has several people’s points of view, mainly women telling us of the everyday hardships they face in the male orientated land.
Valentine is a beautifully written and thought-provoking novel set in 1970’s Texas. I did enjoy the first half of this book. Showing the hardships in them times of Texas. But I thought that there were too many characters and too much going’s on. That for me personally I got disengaged by the end of this book.

This story is about the lives of women and girls and the secrets and lies in a small town. I thought it would hold my attention more than it did.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore is an amazing book,even more amazingly it's her debut novel.
The book begins with the violent rape of a young Mexican girl and rather than following the investigation and trial as a crime novel it tells of the effects of the attack on various women as the ripples move outwards and even those not directly involved are affected. Set in 1976 in the West Texas Oil town of Odessa it's very much a snapshot of a time and a area where rampant racism and sexism is the norm while women are expected to be housewives ,mothers or eye candy in the locals bars and den of iniquity and be happy with their lot. The story goes from woman to woman telling her story while each vignette is linked to the main story. There are male characters and mostly they're pretty horrible but this is mostly about women and their struggles to be heard and survive.
The writing is quite stunning and I felt I knew the women in the stories personally ,it's also very moving and at times brutal. The Texas of the era doesn't come out well and the trial of the attacker is farcical , the victim, Gloria, doesn't even turn up knowing what to expect while the the more naive Mary Rose Whitehead appears as a witness and learns a bitter lesson about the society she lives in..
There's so much in this book, all of the women have their own cross to bear but they all the end find better things in life ,often in ways they'd never have expected, there are no perfect outcomes but there are satisfactory ones.
I read a lot and every so often I pick up something really special, Valentine comes under that category.

Big thanks to Elizabeth Wetmore, 4th Estate and Netgalley for the ARC in return for an honest review.

DNF 40%

While I could get behind the lack of quotation of marks, I find the shifting povs to be unnecessary. I was under the impression that different perspectives would focus on Gloria Ramírez and her story but she is a mere blip in the lives of these other 3 or 4 characters. These women go on about their own mundane worries (one has just lost her husband, another one has a young daughter, and one has left her daughter). The needlessly unpleasant Debra-Ann is such a cliché. How is her narrative relevant/of any interest?
So far Gloria has had barely any page-time which is rather frustrating. She should be the one telling the majority of this story.
Elizabeth Wetmore's writing tries and fails to be gritty. There are also some dodgy metaphors that I found really off-putting ('neighbor kids who have spilled out of houses and across lawns like pecans from an overturned basket).
If you are not tired of this type of narrative (in which small towns are full of gossip-y & close minded people) and you don't find a lack of quotation of marks to be irritating, you might want to consider picking this book up.

An astonishingly unforgettable debut from the talented Elizabeth Wetmore, historical fiction set in the searing heat and dust of West Texas, in the cursed bust and boom oil town of Odessa in 1976, a white man's town in every which way, where men die in a variety of circumstances but if a woman dies, its more likely than not to be at the hands of a man. For women, narrow limits and prescribed perameters of life have them desperately dreaming of seeing a wider world, where pregnancy and motherhood are steel traps with a vice like grip that crush spirits, dreams, hopes and imprisons, a life sentence with no parole. Odessa is a town, a community full of fools and sinners, that is as guilty as sin, with its vicious, unapologetic racism running rampant through its veins, where women and girls are abused, condemned and murdered with impunity, and justice is a forlorn unattainable ideal.

Wetmore examines Odessa and the social norms and attitudes of the period through the lives of women and girls, such as the married and pregnant Mary Rose Whitehead, the elderly, stubborn, grumpy and bereaved Corinne Shepherd, mourning the loss of her beloved husband, Potter, 17 year old Karla Sibley working as a waitress, the plucky 10 year old Debra Ann, missing her mother, Ginny, who loves her daughter, but needs more as she escapes the town, and 14 year old Mexican Gloria. Mary Rose's courage shines like a beacon when she stands up for the barely alive, battered and raped Gloria when the girl turns up at her ranch. Her husband, Robert, like the other menfolk, consider her beyond the pale, and a race traitor for her willingness to testify against the paedophile and rapist Dale Strickland, the son of a preacher man. After all, Gloria, who becomes Glory, is Mexican, asking for it, and anyway Mexican girls are not the same as white girls. Mary Rose dares to dream of justice for Gloria, but Corinne has no such illusions.

Wetmore relates an Odessa where the women, despite everything that stands in their path, support and help each other, such as the indomitable Corinne coming to the aid of Mary Rose as her unbridled wrath and rage at injustice push her close to the edges of insanity, Suzanne Ledbetter with her voluntary provisions to those in need, and the women supporting Karla, determining an alternative justice for Dale. Debra Ann's compassion, kindness, and relationship with the drain pipe living ex-soldier, Jesse Belden, allow the two of them to meet each others need to be cared for when they are neglected by everyone else. Victor, Gloria's uncle, looks after her when her mother is deported, illustrating his wisdom in understanding that nothing causes more suffering than vengeance.

This is a stellar character driven read that details the lives and circumstances of this place and this time period, a novel with an ironic title of Valentine, the only true Valentines in the novel are Corinne and Potter, and Potter is dead. Wetmore is unafraid of venturing into sacrilegious territory where her characters can feel the all too real chains and boredom of motherhood, where you can love someone with all your heart and still wish they weren't there. This is a a hugely memorable and terrific read, and I just cannot wait for whatever Wetmore turns her attention to next and writes about. Highly recommended. Many thanks to HarperCollins 4th Estate for an ARC.

A really emotional book and a struggle to read at times, but that’s because it was so good, so well written that I connected with the characters so well and ‘felt’ their journey and you do go on their journey with them. I say a struggle I mean emotionally, because it was still gripping and I couldn’t wait to get back to it whenever I left. The writing is beautiful and I can’t believe this is a debut, but definitely one to watch and should be up for awards, one of the best of 2020 surely.


Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

This is a fantastic read. It’s 1976 and right at the start of the book a dreadful crime takes place. However, this is not directly about that crime. This is the interwoven tales of a number of protagonists who are linked directly or indirectly to what happened. A searing insight into Texas at the start of the oil boom years which, in structure and in empathy reminded me of Bernadine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other. Beautifully written, this is one which will stay with you. A solid 4.5*

With thanks to Netgalley and 4th Estate/Williams Collins for an ARC in consideration of an honest review. Also thanks to the podcast Book Off where I discovered this book when it was championed by Jeanine Cummins.

One of those rare, involving stories that I couldn't wait to get back to but also didn't want to end! Yes, the opening scenes were really tough to get through but underpinned everything else that then followed. I felt like I knew the women of Odessa, that they lived and breathed, and it was a real struggle to say goodbye to them. What a book.

This is the benchmark against which all my further reading in 2020 will now be measured. Absolutely outstanding!