by Kathleen Pendleton, Tricia Pendleton, Jarvis Johnson, Matthew Johnson, Daisy Johnson
First published 2017
Kathleen Pendleton's debut novel traces one woman's solitary life in rural Maine, where survival depends on skill and silence. Martha Rourke lives alone in a weathered farmhouse near Camden, inheriting her family's generations-old property after a series of personal losses. When an unexpected land development threatens her inherited acres, she must navigate local bureaucracy and confront her own isolation. Her connection to the land—preserved through meticulous gardening, careful animal husbandry, and deep generational memory—becomes her most potent defense. As outsiders pressure her to sell, Martha discovers the quiet strength of her family's roots and her own unexpected resilience. A story of territorial commitment that pulses with the raw rhythms of New England rural life.
Genres: family-life, american-fiction, contemporary, 21st-century
Vibes: atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: isolation, resilience
Setting: Camden, Maine
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
35 pages · Paperback · Independently published