Nothing’’s Ever Right or Wrong

When Stella was a child, her father told her life was about making bargains and sticking to them-but not every bargain is kept. Promises made on the front seat of a pickup truck were soon broken. At seventeen, Stella is an unwed mother struggling to care for a Down Syndrome son. Her father has deserted the family, her mother is sinking into depression, and a rundown Kentucky farm is her only chance of survival. Hope arrives in the form of Sawyer Warren, driving a dusty black Hudson. He offers her a deal and Stella's prospects seem to be looking up-until Sawyer gets in the way of a bullet. Stella finds herself, knees to the floor, in a hospital room, making a pledge in return for his life. She marries Sawyer and has a second child, but his careless past soon overwhelms them. Struggling to keep the family together, Stella takes a job at the local sheriff's office. Under the sway of a charismatic deputy, and thrust into the thick of a murder-suicide investigation, Stella hits a crossroad. As she struggles to regain her equilibrium, her strong-willed daughter, Sky, makes an urgent demand. Now Stella must decide if she can make one more bargain-and keep it.

Jennie L. Brown was born in Belle Fourche, South Dakota and grew up in Casper, Wyoming. She worked as a bookkeeper, a bartender, and a municipal court clerk with a police department before earning her degrees at the University of Colorado. After teaching in the West, she moved to Kentucky, where she has lived since 1991. She has traveled extensively, including eastern Europe and northern Africa. Her fiction, nonfiction, and essays have won various honors and awards. Currently, she makes her home in a cottage north of Bowling Green, Kentucky where she is writing a sequel to Nothing’s Ever Right or Wrong.