FALLEN LAND by Taylor Brown

Fallen Land is an expansion of Taylor Brown's title story from his award-winning collection In The Season of Blood and Gold, which I read last year and loved. This debut novel follows teenagers Callum and Ava, thrown together after he saves her during a pillaging in the middle of the Civil War. Together with their horse Reiver, they search for a place to call home, while trying to evade Callum's former gang and an infamous one-armed bounty hunter.

While I was equally impressed with Brown's writing here as I was when reading his short stories last year, this novel was a disappointment and a bit of a slog to get through. Most of the novel focuses on Callum and Ava riding through the countryside, which would have been alright if I were engaged with the characters. But ultimately they never really flew off the page for me. I'll be reading more by Brown because there's tons of promise and I like his short stories, but I really had high hopes for this one and it just turned out to be "okay."

*I received an advance copy of this through Netgalley in exchange for my honest take on it.*

GRADE: C+