LATEST BOOK ••• All Men Glad and Wise

A mystery set five months after the end of World War I, on a Cotswolds estate whose heir, Hugh Chandace-Willingford, one of the finest riders in England, has been killed at Passchendaele. Hugh has left behind Errant, a gloriously talented young horse, a stable once famous throughout England for dressage, and Harry Green, a stable lad whose father is the chief groom. Harry’s principal concern until the book’s opening has been working Errant in the dressage learned from Hugh—but in March, 1919, the steward of the estate is murdered, and the investigation proves that the estate is on the verge of bankruptcy. What will happen to Harry’s father, now that automobiles are replacing horses as a means of transportation? And what will happen to Harry, a stable lad who is in fact a lass—and one with no skills suitable to women? The answer is clear: Harry must discover who killed the steward, thus proving herself Somebody instead of a servant. The prospect is more dangerous than she has anticipated.

Available at Bartleby's Books and other bookstores.



AWARDS

  • 2022 IPNE Award Finalist in Genre Fiction
  • 2022 Foreword INDIES finalist in Mystery
  • 2023 Global Book Award Finalist in Historical Fiction


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    One Minute Reviews

    Laura's column "One Minute Reviews" appeared bi-weekly in Wilmington, Vermont's Deerfield Valley News 2015–2023. In April 2018, she found that no Vermont periodical consistently reviews all commercially published fiction and non-fiction by Vermont authors, so she started a series to fill that void. Published reviews from that series and some earlier reviews of local authors are listed with links to a scan of the printed copy.

    Many of the books reviewed in this series are available through Wilmington's Pettee Memorial Library, the Whitingham Free Public Library, and locally-owned Bartleby's Books in Wilmington.



    Reviews 2024–present

    Sarah Stewart Taylor, Agony Hill

    Doris Kearns Goodwin, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s, 8/29/2024

    Rob Mermin, Circle of Sawdust: A Circus Memoir of Mud, Myth, Mirth, Mayhem, and Magic, 8/1/2024

    Percival Everett, James, 6/20/2024

    Shelby Van Pelt, Remarkably Bright Creatures, 6/6/2024

    Jason Roberts, Every Living Thing: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life, 5/23/2024

    Paul Harding, This Other Eden: A Novel, 5/9/2024

    Geraldine Brooks, Horse, 4/11/2024

    Daniel Mason, North Woods: a Novel, 3/21/2024

    Vermont Reviews 2016–2023

    Celia Ryker, Augusta: A Novel Based on a True Story, 5/11/2023

    Jane Dwinell and Sky Yardley, Alzheimer’s Canyon: One Couple’s Reflections on Living with Dementia, May 2023

    Wyn Cooper, Way Out West, 12/29/2022

    Arlene Distler, This Earth, This Body, 12/14/2022

    Eric Pope, Granite Kingdom: A Novel, 12/8/2022

    Stephen L. Harris, No Excuses, 11/23/2022

    Jennifer McMahon, The Children on the Hill, 10/13/2022

    Chris Bohjalian, The Lioness, 9/8/2022

    Rebecca Majoya and Sallyann Majoya, Uncertain Fruit: A Memoir of Infertility, Loss, and Love, 9/1/2022

    Archer Mayor, Fall Guy, 7/21/2022

    Susan Speranza, Ice Out: A Novel, 6/16/2022

    Celia Ryker, Walking Home: Trail Stories, 6/2/2022

    Don Hooper and Bill Mares, I Could Hardly Keep from Laughing: An Illustrated Collection of Vermont Humor, 4/21/2022

    Ann Gengarelly, Tony Gengarelly, eds., Another World: Poetry & Art by Young People From The Poetry Studio, 4/7/2022

    Catherine Drake, The Treehouse on Dog River Road, 3/24/2022

    Archer Mayor, Marked Man: A Joe Gunther Novel, 3/3/2022

    Gregory Maguire, The Brides of Maracoor, 2/17/2022

    Bernie Lambek, Intent to Commit, 1/6/2022

    Megan Mayhew Bergman, How Strange a Season, 12/30/2021

    Brad Kessler, North, 12/2/2021

    Nathaniel Ian Miller, The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven, 11/24/2021

    Michael Freed-Thall, Horodno Burning, 11/4/2021

    Gerette Buglion, An Everyday Cult, 9/16/2021

    Beth Kanell, This Ardent Flame. The Wings of Freedom, Book Two, 9/2/2021

    Ann Braden, Flight of the Puffin, 8/12/2021

    Liza Ketchum, The Last Garden and Begin with a Bee, 7/22/21

    Brett Ann Stanciu, Unstitched: My Journey to Understand Opioid Addiction and How People and Communities Can Heal, 7/1/2021

    Neil Shepard and Tamra J. Higgins Vermont Poets and Their Craft, written 2019 for American Book Review

    Kevin Stone, The Onion Ring Lovers (Guide to Vermont), 5/27/2021

    Kimberly B. Cheney, A Lawyer's Life to Live, 5/6/2021

    Larry Olmsted, Fans: How Watching Sports Makes Us Happier, Healthier, And More Understanding, 4/8/2021

    Melanie Finn, The Hare, 3/25/21

    Sam Clark, The Inland Sea: A Mystery, 3/11/2021

    S. Lee Manning, Trojan Horse: A Koyla Petrov Thriller, 2/4/2021

    Ginny Sassaman, Preaching Happiness, 12/23/2020

    Archer Mayor, The Orphan's Guilt, 11/25/2020

    Daphne Kalmar, Stealing Mt. Rushmore, 11/12/2020

    Scudder H. Parker, Safe as Lightning, 10/29/2020

    Peter Cameron, What Happens at Night, 10/8/2020

    Makenna Goodman, The Shame, 9/10/2020

    Garrett M. Graff, The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11, 8/27/2020

    Lisa Alther, Swan Song; An Odyssey, 8/13/2020

    Sarah Stewart Taylor, The Mountains Wild, 7/16/2020

    Margot Harrison, The Glare, 7/2/2020

    Jay Kirk, Avoid the Day: a New Nonfiction in Two Movements, <6/18/2020/p>

    Kari Lizer, Aren't You Forgetting Someone? Essays from my Mid-Life Revenge, 5/28/2020

    Katherine Forbes Riley, The Bobcat, 5/14/2020

    Stephen P. Kiernan, Universe of Two, 4/16/2020

    Katherine Arden, Dead Voices, 4/2/2020

    Claire Malcom Lintilhac, China in Another Time: A Personal Story, 3/19/2020

    Julia Alvarez, Afterlife, 3/5/2020

    Sam Brakeley, Skiing with Henry Knox: A Personal Journey Along Vermont's Catamount Trail, 2/20/2020

    Chris Bohjalian, The Red Lotus, 1/16/2020

    Tod Olson, Into The Clouds: The Race to Climb the World's Most Dangerous Mountain, 1/2/2020

    Leath Tonino, The West Will Swallow You: Essays, 12/19/2019

    Jon Clinch, Marley, 12/5/2019

    Gary K. Meffe, The Wizard of Odd: A Vermont Tale of Community Devotion, 11/21/2019

    Kristina Rodanas, Huck's Way Home, 10/31/2019

    Archer Mayor, Bomber's Moon, 10/3/2019

    Chris Tebbetts, Me, Myself, and Him, 10/17/2019

    Howard Norman, The Ghost Clause, 9/19/2019

    Bill McKibben, Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?, 9/5/2019

    Dave Patterson, Soon The Light Will Be Perfect, 8/22/2019

    Katherine Arden, Small Spaces, 8/8/2019

    Miciah Bay Gault, Goodnight Stranger, 7/25/2019

    Dr. Molly Millwood, To Have and to Hold: Motherhood, Marriage, and the Modern Dilemma, 7/11/2019

    Jo Knowles, Where The Heart Is, 6/27/2019

    J.C. Myers, Junkyard at No Town, 6/13/2019

    Katherine Arden, The Winter of the Witch, 5/30/2019

    Jennifer McMahon, The Invited, 5/16/2019

    Lindsey Stoddard, Right as Rain, 4/18/2019

    Christy Mihaly and Joe Cepeda, Hey, Hey, Hay! A Tale of Bales and the Machines That Make Them, 4/4/2019

    Archer Mayor, Bury The Lead: A Joe Gunther Novel, 3/21/2019

    Thomas Christopher Greene, The Perfect Liar, 3/7/2019

    Reeve Lindbergh, Two Lives, 2/21/2019

    Leath Tonino, The Animal One Thousand Miles Long: Seven Lengths of Vermont and Other Adventures, 2/7/2019

    Sara Ward, Aesop Lake, 1/24/2019

    Tony Whedon, Drunk in the Woods, 1/10/2019

    Yvonne Daley, Going Up the Country: When the Hippies, Dreamers, Freaks, and Radicals Moved to Vermont, 12/27/2018

    Bernie Lambek, Uncivil Liberties: A Novel, 12/12/2018

    Simone St. James, The Broken Girls, 11/29/2018

    T. Stores, Frost Heaves, 11/15/2018

    Melanie Finn, The Underneath, 11/1/2018

    Maria Hummel, Still Lives, 10/18/2018

    Rick Winston, Red Scare in the Green Mountains: Vermont in the McCarthy Era 1946-1960, 10/5/2018

    Meg Little Reilly, Everything That Follows, 9/20/2018

    Ann Braden, The Benefits of Being an Octopus, 9/5/2018

    Mary Kathleen Mehuron, The Opposite of Never, 8/16/2018

    Sue Halpern, Summer Hours at the Robbers Library, 8/2/2018

    Jessie Haas, Rescue, 7/26/2018

    Kimberly Harrington, Amateur Hour: Motherhood in Essays and Swear Words, 7/12/2018

    Beth Kanell, The Long Shadow, 6/16/2018

    Chris Bohjalian, The Flight Attendant, 5/27/2018

    Jackson Ellis, Lords of St. Thomas, 5/10/2018

    Robin MacArthur, Heart Spring Mountain, 2/15/2018

    Tracey Medeiros, The Vermont Non-GMO Cookbook

    Robin MacArthur, Half Wild, 9/22/2016

    Neil Shepard and Anthony Reczek, Vermont Exit Ramps II, 4/28/2016

    Castle Freeman, Jr., The Devil in the Valley, 2/4/2016