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by Hazel Gaynor
Long before Dorothy visits Oz, her aunt, Emily Gale, sets off on her own grand adventure, leaving gritty Chicago behind for Kansas and a life that will utterly change her, in this transporting novel from New York Times bestselling author Hazel Gaynor.
Chicago, 1924: Emily and her new husband, Henry, yearn to leave the bustle of Chicago for the promise of their own American dream among the harsh beauty of the prairie. But leaving the city means leaving Emily's beloved sister, Annie, who was once closer to her than anyone in the world.
Kansas, 1932: Emily and Henry have established their new home among the warmth of the farming community in Kansas. Aligned to the fickle fortunes of nature, their lives hold a precarious and hopeful purpose, until tragedy strikes and their orphaned niece, Dorothy, lands on their doorstep.
The wide-eyed child isn't the only thing to disrupt Emily's world. Drought and devastating dust storms threaten to destroy everything, and her much-loved home becomes a place of uncertainty and danger. When the past catches up with the present and old secrets are exposed, Emily fears she will lose the most cherished thing of all: Dorothy.
Bursting with courage and heart, Before Dorothy tells the story of the woman who raised a beloved heroine, and ponders the question: what is the true meaning of home?
"In Technicolor prose, Hazel Gaynor gives new meaning to the familiar phrase 'there's no place like home' in this stunning novel that imagines the real lives of Auntie Em, Uncle Henry, Dorothy, and Toto in the dust bowl of the Depression. Readers will love collecting Easter eggs from the 1939 movie scattered throughout this moving story about family secrets and the enduring power of love. Ingeniously done." —Kerri Maher, USA Today bestselling author of All You Have To Do Is Call
"Like Dorothy stepping into Oz, Hazel Gaynor's new novel pulls Auntie Em out of a black and white background and into a full-color world all her own." —Sarah Miller, USA Today bestselling author of Marmee and Caroline: Little House, Revisited
This information about Before Dorothy was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Hazel Gaynor is an award-winning, New York Times, USA Today, Irish Times, and internationally bestselling author known for her deeply moving historical novels which explore the defining events of the 20th century. Her most recent novel, The Last Lifeboat, was a Times historical novel of the month, an Audie award winner, and was short-listed for the Irish Book Awards. Her work is published in twenty-seven territories to date. She lives in Ireland with her family.
I have lost all sense of home, having moved about so much. It means to me now only that place where the books are ...
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