The Staked Plains

Jenny is a bad psychic when she arrives in Querosa, not because she doesn't possess the powers, but she can't control them. To her husband, an archaeologist at the local college, she seems little more than a sexual object. Querosa is in shambles. Farmhands and workers barely eke out a living and when the Great Drought sets in, ranchers are forced to sell their land and local businesses shutter. Only churches seem to prosper. Querosa is suspicious of Jenny's gift, yet people begin seeking her out. They divulge their secrets and ask desperate questions about the future. Advising - and befriending - a gay teenager and a struggling farmer's wife, Jenny slowly uncovers the town's many layers of discrimination, hatred, and violence. When the feral boy Haag appears in her backyard, armed men set up camp in abandoned trailers outside of town, and farms burn to the ground, Jenny abandons her role as a bystander, with disastrous results. Quickly sliding from telling futures to finding water and brutally driving out cancer by attacking the body, she begins to understand that her powers are as out-of-control as is her marriage and her sordid relationship with a predatory banker. The people who once sought her help turn against her, and Jenny is forced to make momentous decisions about herself, her family, and Haag.

About the Author

STEFAN KIESBYE is the author of Next Door Lived A Girl and Your House Is on Fire, Your Children All Gone. He lives in Rohnert Park, California, with his wife Sanaz and their dogs Dunkin, Nozomi, and Kurt, and teaches creative writing at Sonoma State University.

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