Cotter's competent debut imagines the Yankee frontier as recreated by a severe energy crisis, along with an unlikely heroine to navigate it. In 2013, fuel shortages are rampant, forcing Roberta Wilcox from her University of Maryland teaching job. As she returns to her rural hometown of Coward's Hole, R.I., for the first time in eight years, ruthless Sen. Fred Maine takes control of the state's energy rationing,...
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