Shadows of Pecan Hollow

Author: Caroline Frost
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers, 2022
Pages: 416
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: It was 1970 when thirteen-year-old runaway Kit Walker was abducted by Manny Romero, a smooth-talking low-level criminal, who first coddled her and then groomed her into his partner-in-crime. Before long, Kit and Manny were infamous for their string of gas station robberies throughout Texas, making a name for themselves as the Texas Twosome.

Twenty years after they meet, Kit has scraped together a life for herself and her daughter amongst the pecan trees and muddy creeks of the town of Pecan Hollow, far from Manny. But when he shows up at her doorstep a new man, fresh out of prison, Kit is forced to reckon with the shadows of her past, and her community is sent into a tailspin.

Review: First, let's talk about Shadows of Pecan Hollow. I enjoyed the story. It was fastpaced and complex enough to keep me interested. A certain level of suspension of belief is required, but it is fiction and not that outrageous so I think that's okay.

Now let's talk about how it in relation to another book in this coming-of-age genre. Shadows of Pecan Hollow has been compared to Where the Crawdads Sing, which I reviewed here. I enjoyed SoPH more. The language is less flowery and far less descriptive. If that's what you loved about Crawdads, I think you'll still enjoy this story, but you'll find Crawdads to be the better novel.