Elizabeth Wetmore – författare

An instant New York Times Bestseller • Finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize • A Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick

"A thrilling debut that deserves your attention." —Ron Charles, Washington Post

“Exceptional. . . . Wetmore, like Harper Lee before her, has little interest in preserving the illusions of people who believe that justice and love will always prevail. . . . An incredibly moving and emotionally devastating piece of work.” — Houston Chronicle

Written with the haunting emotional power of Elizabeth Strout and Barbara Kingsolver, an astonishing debut novel that explores the lingering effects of a brutal crime on the women of one small Texas oil town in the 1970s.

Mercy is hard in a place like this . . .

It’s February 1976, and Odessa, Texas, stands on the cusp of the next great oil boom. While the town’s men embrace the coming prosperity, its women intimately know and fear the violence that always seems to follow.

In the early hours of the morning after Valentine’s Day, fourteen-year-old Gloria Ramírez appears on the front porch of Mary Rose Whitehead’s ranch house, broken and barely alive. The teenager had been viciously attacked in a nearby oil field—an act of brutality that is tried in the churches and barrooms of Odessa before it can reach a court of law. When justice is evasive, the stage is set for a showdown with potentially devastating consequences.

Valentine is a haunting exploration of the intersections of violence and race, class and region in a story that plumbs the depths of darkness and fear, yet offers a window into beauty and hope. Told through the alternating points of view of indelible characters who burrow deep in the reader’s heart, this fierce, unflinching, and surprisingly tender novel illuminates women’s strength and vulnerability, and reminds us that it is the stories we tell ourselves that keep us alive.

An instant New York Times BestsellerA Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick!

"A thrilling debut that deserves your attention." –Ron Charles, the Washington Post

Written with the haunting emotional power of Elizabeth Strout and Barbara Kingsolver, an astonishing debut novel that explores the lingering effects of a brutal crime on the women of one small Texas oil town in the 1970s, longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and the VCU Cabell First Novel Award. 

Mercy is hard in a place like this . . .

It’s February 1976, and Odessa, Texas, stands on the cusp of the next great oil boom. While the town’s men embrace the coming prosperity, its women intimately know and fear the violence that always seems to follow.

In the early hours of the morning after Valentine’s Day, fourteen-year-old Gloria Ramírez appears on the front porch of Mary Rose Whitehead’s ranch house, broken and barely alive. The teenager had been viciously attacked in a nearby oil field—an act of brutality that is tried in the churches and barrooms of Odessa before it can reach a court of law. When justice is evasive, the stage is set for a showdown with potentially devastating consequences.

Valentine is a haunting exploration of the intersections of violence and race, class and region in a story that plumbs the depths of darkness and fear, yet offers a window into beauty and hope. Told through the alternating points of view of indelible characters who burrow deep in the reader’s heart, this fierce, unflinching, and surprisingly tender novel illuminates women’s strength and vulnerability, and reminds us that it is the stories we tell ourselves that keep us alive.

En un pueblo a trescientos kilómetros de cualquier lugar, los destinos de un puñado de personajes se entrelazan en una narración magistral de odio y miedo, pero también de amor y de esperanza.

Es el día de San Valentín del año 1976 y el pueblo de Odessa, Texas, está en la cúspide de un boom petrolero.

En medio del campo petrolífero, pocos minutos antes del amanecer, Glory Ramírez, de catorce años, logra sacar fuerzas para escapar de su agresor. Atraviesa el campo entre alambres de púas, restos de tuberías rotas y matojos de mezquite hasta llegar a la puerta de Mary Rose Whitehead, cuya vida se ve irremediablemente trastocada no sólo por la crueldad de la que ha sido víctima la niña –bien podría ser su hija– sino por los hechos subsecuentes, que se suman a los relatos de violencia e injusticia cotidianas que por generaciones han sufrido las mujeres de su pueblo.

Más allá de describir el contexto histórico de un pueblo sureño, Elizabeth Wetmore nos ofrece un potente debut literario que explora los límites del ser humano. Una novela coral extraordinariamente escrita que nos lleva por las entrañas de las mujeres que la protagonizan.

Nacida y criada en West Texas, Elizabeth Wetmore vive con su esposo y su hijo en Chicago. Amor y furia es su primera novela.