Helpful Score: 2
This a great horror story. Lots of twists and turns.
Helpful Score: 1
I bought this book for $1 at a used book store and wasn't expecting much. I was happily surprised though. It was a good little story about a town that has not had rain in 4 years and one of the residents hires a rainmaker. Good storytelling and rounding out of the characters by the author. I will be looking for her other novel to read as well.
Helpful Score: 1
[From Library Journal] The farming town of Goodlands, North Dakota, has suffered through four years of drought, with one farm after another falling to the auctioneer's gavel. Then a stranger comes to town...a rainmaker...and the stage is set for a confrontation with the subterranean force that is punishing the people of Goodlands for the sins of their ancestors. It starts with small things: a driveway cracks in two, fences are cut --- but soon a dry, dark dust rises from the sere soil of Goodlands and takes possession of first one, then another young woman's will.
[Entertainment Weekly] Moloney intertwines powerful psychological, supernatural, and sexual undercurrents--making Dry Spells an absorbing rainy afternoon read!
[Entertainment Weekly] Moloney intertwines powerful psychological, supernatural, and sexual undercurrents--making Dry Spells an absorbing rainy afternoon read!
Helpful Score: 1
From Booklist
Goodlands, North Dakota, is enduring its fourth year of drought when Tom Keatley, rainmaker, saunters into town. Although Tom is a drifter, somehow he got the letter town banker Karen Grange sent him after seeing a TV clip of him at work. He camps out near Karen's place just as all hell--fires, sabotaged water tanks, crevasses opening in the middle of roads, huge trees falling so as to create maximum damage--breaks loose. The vengeful spirit of a woman raped and murdered by a town father decades ago is on the rampage. The spirit's hatred is behind Goodlands' dry spell, too, but everything comes round right after a final showdown between it and Tom. Meanwhile, Moloney pads a simple plot with persuasive, subsidiary rural characterizations and with incidents that betray aspirations to the King's RowPeyton Place, small-town-scandal subgenre as much as to dark fantasy. Occasionally, Moloney seems to strive for even greater literary distinction, and then the yarn reads like a blend of Stephen King and Jane Smiley.
Goodlands, North Dakota, is enduring its fourth year of drought when Tom Keatley, rainmaker, saunters into town. Although Tom is a drifter, somehow he got the letter town banker Karen Grange sent him after seeing a TV clip of him at work. He camps out near Karen's place just as all hell--fires, sabotaged water tanks, crevasses opening in the middle of roads, huge trees falling so as to create maximum damage--breaks loose. The vengeful spirit of a woman raped and murdered by a town father decades ago is on the rampage. The spirit's hatred is behind Goodlands' dry spell, too, but everything comes round right after a final showdown between it and Tom. Meanwhile, Moloney pads a simple plot with persuasive, subsidiary rural characterizations and with incidents that betray aspirations to the King's RowPeyton Place, small-town-scandal subgenre as much as to dark fantasy. Occasionally, Moloney seems to strive for even greater literary distinction, and then the yarn reads like a blend of Stephen King and Jane Smiley.
This is the first of Susie Moloney's books that I have read, and I was pleasantly surprised. I enjoyed the characters and found the story line engaging. I wonder just how much more the story would have drawn me in had I read it during a hot summer month. Excellent story for Moloney's sophomore attempt, and I look forward to reading more books by her.
An Okay novel.
About a town in North Dakota that hasn't had rain in 4 years. In the wake of the drought, a sudden wave of strange, twisted crimes has shattered families and lives. Karen Grange meets Tom Keatley, a drifter and rainmaker, and he is her last hope.
I really loved this book. It has everything... touching on the supernatural, intrigue, romance... everything.
Reminds me of some of the Stephen King novels, with a touch of myth.
A story of a rainmaker who travels from town to town "grifting" and making rain and a woman who comes to North Dakota to start a new life in a once-thriving town which hasn't had rain in four years. A classic struggle between good and evil, with pychological, supernatural and sexual undercurrents. (A little reminiscent of early Stephen King.)
Good reading. A bit of magic realism.
I enjoyed reading this book especially since Texas is experiencing a drought this summer. Well drawn characters and interesting plot twist.
I enjoyed this book but it did seem like it took awhile to get where it was going.
A thrilling read.
