Shadows of Pecan Hollow

September 1, 2021

Abducted in 1970 by small-time crook Manny Romero, 13-year-old runaway Kit Walker at first gently tended to and then initiated into a life of crime; she and Manny are soon known as the Texaco Twosome for their gutsy gas station robberies. A decade and a half later, Kit is living in modest, muddy Pecan Hollow with her daughter when Manny reappears, just out of jail and ready to start a clean new life--with her. From debuter Frost; with a75,000-copy first printing.

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November 22, 2021
Frost debuts with the captivating if messy story of a woman who comes of age amid a life of crime. At 13, foster child Kit Walker meets Manny Romero at a Texas gas station. Manny grooms her as an accomplice for thefts and eventually armed robbery, and when Kit is 19 Manny gets her pregnant. He wants Kit to have an abortion, but she breaks away from him, carving out a hardscrabble life for herself and her daughter, Charlie, in the small town of Pecan Hollow. Fourteen years later, Manny, fresh from prison and claiming to be reformed, tracks her down. The author does a bang-up job fleshing out Kit’s young life, creating the perfect storm of circumstances—feeling abandoned and undeserving of love as she is shuffled from one foster family to the next—for her to trust a stranger who treats her with a kindness she’s never known. Once Manny comes back, however, the story goes a bit off the rails, as Manny charms the residents of Pecan Hollow, including the teenage Charlie, and Kit worries Manny will take Charlie away from her. Much melodrama ensues, including some gratuitous violence. Nevertheless, Frost offers plenty of punchy lines (on Manny: “His careful calm gave way to a bulldozing rage”). It’s uneven, but there’s promise here. Agent: Elizabeth Winnick, McIntosh & Otis.

January 1, 2022
As an adolescent runaway from abusive foster homes, Kit finds the guardian she thinks she needs after being abducted by Manny Romero, a charismatic grifter. Manny indulges Kit, luring her with food and shelter, establishing a false sense of security, then turns her into his accomplice in a string of petty crimes that grow increasingly violent. Finally, when Kit is barely of age, they become lovers, and when Kit becomes pregnant, Manny tries to exert his ultimate control by forcing her to have an abortion. But the notion of caring for a new life compels Kit to abandon Manny and escape to the only family she is aware of, an elderly aunt in backwoods Pecan Hollow, Texas, which is where Manny finds her upon his release from prison 14 years later. With his hold over Kit extending to their daughter, Charlie, the specter of history repeating itself hurls the trio into a deadly showdown. Demonstrating a polished sense of setting and characterization, Frost crafts a deftly complex, psychologically astute, and deeply unsettling debut novel.

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March 1, 2022
A woman's carefully built life is thrown into turmoil when the father of her child arrives on her doorstep, claiming to have changed, in this debut novel. Kit Walker has worked hard to provide a stable home for her daughter, Charlie. Working odd jobs to make ends meet and struggling with Charlie's behavioral problems, Kit leads a private and isolated existence in the rural Texas town of Pecan Hollow. Her quiet life is a matter of self-preservation. At 13, runaway Kit was picked up and groomed by Manny Romero, an adult who took advantage of her loneliness to get her involved in a string of robberies. Kit bailed when she became pregnant, leaving Manny to be arrested when a job went downhill. But when Manny arrives at her door unannounced, having recently been released from prison, Kit can't resist letting him back into her life. Frost's prose is engaging and sharp-edged, carefully attuned to her characters in a way that feels vividly real. Kit's difficulties with Charlie, who doesn't know about her mother's past but whom Kit sees through the lens of her own broken childhood, are realistically depicted with empathy for both of them, while Manny's capacity for manipulation and cruelty is chillingly depicted from the first time he appears on the page. A heart-rending and complex examination of one woman's flawed attempts to overcome her past.

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