Rainwater

I have read several of Sandra Browns books and enjoyed each and everyone of them. However, Rainwater, I read in three days. It was riveting, heartbreaking, inciteful, and powerful. I laughed, cried and was totally engrossed with this story. It was almost like living in that era. I know, from my grandparents stories how awful the depression was. This story depicts some of the best and the worst characteristics of humans.

This novel is preceded by a preface in which the author explains that this book was written between her more usual novels blockbuster romantic suspense, that it simply couldn’t go unwritten. After reading the book, I understand what she meant. The novel is set in Brown’s beloved Texas, but it is a novel of sweet, aching complexity. The heroine is the mother of an almost-ten-year-old autistic son, and the titular hero is a man dying of metastatic bone cancer. Brown tackles the 1930s unflinchingly, its toxic racism, and its dearth of knowledge about cancer treatment, autism, and more in a moving, subtle, and winsome way. As I read, I was reminded often of the classic western film “The Shootist,” which starred Lauren Bacall, as the proprietor of a boarding house, and an aging (and already ill himself) John Wayne, as a dying gunman who moves into the house to spend his final weeks of life. The similarities stop there: Bacall’s character’s son is a teenaged Ron Howard, who idolizes Wayne’s character’s gunslinger past. In Brown’s novel, the hero has no such illustrious (or nefarious) past; he oversaw his father’s cotton empire prior to his cancer diagnosis. The connection between hero and heroine in the film is testy then tender, but it doesn’t progress as the relationship between Ella and David does in the novel. Altogether, I recommend the novel as a bittersweet tale of the redemptive power of love. Brown manages the twists on the plot—New Deal government “bailouts” that involved culling starving herds of cattle, small town bullies, and ever-divisive racial tensions—deftly and cleverly. Although this is not a “typical” Brown novel, it is in my opinion worth reading on every level.

As a diehard fan of Sandra Brown's work, I couldn't wait to dig into Rainwater. An historical fiction novel set during the Great Depression, Rainwater is a departure from the romantic suspense for which Brown is most known. I enjoyed it very much. The time period came alive in the storytelling. The main characters were sympathetic while being very strong. The love story at the heart of the novel was more than a romance. It was the story of a deep, intense love involving sacrifice and courage. Brown succeeded in writing an emotional novel without being sappy. She also portrayed racial tensions and economic hardships with a deft hand. It helped that the story was told through flashback by a family member. Having the story narrated years after the fact made the tragedies and struggles less immediate and easier to deal with, especially at the book's conclusion. I was touched by the story and the family devotion and love portrayed therein.

I've read many Sandra Brown novels, but this one, Rainwater, is the cream of the crop. It is a step out of character for her, but it shows the depth and width of her talent. The romance builds slowly in this book, meanwhile the reader is drawn in by the autistic boy, the dying boarder who is such a unique man, and the racist attitudes that suffocated the country in that day and time. Throughout, one wonders how this could possibly have a happy ending, and if not happy, it does have a satisfying conclusion. When Stephen King took a step aside and wrote The Green Mile, he surpassed himself and rose above his genre, and that is just what Sandra Brown does in Rainwater. It is a wonderful book.

Nice change of pace in books for me. Usually read thrillers, espionage, mysteries etc. But I also enjoy an Easy read, not complicated, great plot and enjoyable story. Grabbed my attention right away, intriguing and couldn't wait to read the next chapters. Recommend to anyone that likes a good drama and a little love story.!

First, to the one star reviewer who said the author never revealed who the man in the shop was. Of course she did, and it was part of what made the ending so much better. I just read this for the first time today. I purchased this book four years ago, but it sat on my Kindle because in my mind, I love Sandra Brown but not as an author of historicals. I can remember reading the Grapes of Wrath and having my parents, who were married and lived through that time (I was a late baby) telling me that the book was so very true to life. That the government failed as many people as the stock market and weather did. I have spoken to friends of my grandparents who were trying to raise their kids in the early 1934 and 1935. So I began reading the book knowing a lot about a time I didn't live in. Sandra Brown didn't either but she sure knows how to bring it to life. Through half of the book I was smiling and the other half I was crying. I hope she writes more from this time period because nothing missed her keyboard - not the despair, the loneliness, the racism, the hatred, the hopelessness of those days. But she also captured the love, the caring. I loved Rainwater himself and Ella was an interesting woman, and very much cut from the fabric of those times. I suspect the one and two star reviews are because people didn't understand that time. It wasn't a case of 'why don't they just give the cows to the people who needed them' before the government could shoot them', it was because the program that paid them for those dead cows was the only way they survived. The ONLY way. Just a story from 1934. My parents lived in a house they owned and my father stayed working that entire decade. My mother raised chickens, and yes to his dying day, my father really wasn't a fan of chickens. Their house wasn't too far from the railroad tracks and my mother would feed the hobos. I asked her once why she wasn't afraid, she told me that those men were so downtrodden that a simple thing like a meal made them feel better about themselves. And the chickens? Because the family next door to them were nearly starving, she would "accidentally" chop the heads off two chickens instead of one, and take the spare to the neighbors. So yes, Sandra Brown really did get it.

I almost put this book down after a couple of chapters, but now I'm glad I didn't. It isn't the greatest book I've ever read and the writing is okay, but not great. It seemed like the author stopped working on it too soon -like she sent in an early version of the manuscript and didn't spend enough time polishing it before submitting for publication. *However*, the prose is easy to follow, and the book is worth reading for the hero alone. He is wonderful! And he is what kept me reading when I wanted to set it aside. As the mother of two autistic children, I dislike books and movies that tell stories of profoundly autistic children who miraculously improve, both because it is rare and because these stories give parents false hope. (Even my two, who were high-functioning to begin with, made progress only through hours of specialized therapy and educational modifications) I thought this book was going to be one of those stories at first, but it wasn't. The book has a bittersweet ending, so have your tissues handy for about the last 10-15 pages. But that said, it is still very much worth reading. I'm glad I did.

Love me some Sandra brown !!! This is my favorite! Very personal story.. felt like I was right there!!’