Because I Loved You by Donnaldson Brown is a unique, character-driven saga that readers will love. I adore books by authors who are so in love with their characters that they allow them to make mistakes, fail miserably, love wildly, and suffer the consequences. In 1972, sixteen-year-old aspiring artist Leni O’Hare’s French war bride mother tries to sell Leni’s beloved horse and her cherished older brother dies at football practice leaving her bereft and vulnerable. Leni falls for her brother’s friend, the math and physics genius Caleb McGrath, the son of a wealthy rancher who can't understand Caleb’s desire to go to college. Both Caleb and Leni are products of the remote East Texas landscape where they live and they both care more about horses than people until they find each other. Caleb’s bad-boy older brother Hank helps Leni when she feels that she must leave town and disappear so Caleb will accept a scholarship at Princeton without her holding him back.
Caleb and Leni meet by chance in the 1980s in New York City where Leni engages in the guerilla art scene and Caleb manages finances for a real estate investment firm and is engaged. Despite their circumstances, they fall in love again until Leni’s fears intervene. Their final meeting comes in 2016 when their earlier mistakes no longer matter and a revealed secret offers hope.
That Brown was once a screenwriter shows in her cinematic word pictures that create vistas allowing the reader to see and feel the remote Texas land and its “pink sunset, stretched thin like taffy across the entire sky.” Brown doesn't simply describe Leni, Caleb, and their families; she produces them out of thin air and the reader sees them as if they were on the big screen. If you love the way Kent Haruf, Leif Enger, and Larry Watson evoke family, small towns, place, and nature, you’re sure to enjoy Because I Loved You.
Summing it Up: Read Because I Loved You for its wonderful, flawed characters, and for its evocation of East Texas that makes you certain you’ve been there. Enjoy the bonus of Brown’s descriptions of Caleb and Leni’s horses and their importance in their lives. Devour it to experience their passionate romance. Select Because I Loved You for your book club because you'll want to talk with others about how hard it can be for damaged souls to risk loving fully and about the importance of becoming who you're meant to be.
Rating: 5 Stars
Publication Date: April 4, 2023
Category: Fiction, Five Stars, Grandma’s Pot Roast, Pigeon Pie (Historical Fiction), Book Club
Author Website: https://www.donnaldsonbrown.com/
Podcast Interview with the Author: https://www.npr.org/podcasts/504991626/a-novel-idea
Read an Excerpt: https://bloomsite.wordpress.com/2022/11/01/an-excerpt-from-donnaldson-browns-debut-novel-because-i-loved-you/
What Others are Saying:
Kirkus Reviews: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/donnaldson-brown/because-i-loved-you/
"Cal and Leni first fall in love with horses, then with each other, a love that not even Donnaldson Brown’s beautifully rendered East Texas landscapes can contain. Because they’ve other loves, too, mathematics for Cal, art for Leni, which conflict with the expectations of their families and their town. There are other secrets, too, one of them buried so deep under their family trees that perhaps it should remain, but it can’t, not if Leni is to be free. Because I Loved You is deeply affecting, swooningly romantic, hard as diamonds, too: dreams don’t always add up, and trouble can sometimes be our friend.”
—Bill Roorbach, author of Lucky Turtle, Life Among Giants, andThe Remedy for Love
“Equal parts Kent Haruf and Elizabeth Wetmore, Because I Loved You embodies all of the expansiveness and intimacy of a contemporary Western page-turner, and more. Starting in a small town in East Texas and traveling to the East Coast, this vivid, riveting narrative will transport you and break your heart at same time. Readers will love Donnaldson Brown’s stunning debut.”
—S. Kirk Walsh, author of The Elephant of Belfast
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