Reviews

Rosary Without Beads by Diana Holguin-Balogh

jennms_qkw's review against another edition

4.0

I love books in which the landscape is a character. This historical novel was based on real events in Lincoln County, New Mexico Territory. Real people, including Billy The Kid, populate its pages, and the main protagonist is the invented sister of an ally of Billy The Kid. Historical and economic issues overlaid with law, order, and justice are given a new treatment. It stretches over a few years, and I could smell the dust and hear the sheep.

bract4813mypacksnet's review

5.0

Travel back in time to New Mexico Territory’s Lincoln County war which ran from 1878 to 1881. Rosary Without Beads captures the romance of the legend of Billy the Kid. Told in the unique voice of Ambrosia Salazar, a sheepherder's daughter, filled with language tethered to the earth with occasional breaks into either lust or heaven or moments that are both. The language is lyrical and unique. There is an understated passion that is far sexier than most blatant romances and unique turns of phrase that fully embody Ambrosia’s internal struggle between her lust for Billy the Kid and a more traditional marriage to Ramon, based more in financial terms than in true love (Ramon lusts after Ambrosia’s sister, Sinfarosa, who has traded farm life for the brothel).

Holguín-Balogh shows Billy’s charm as well as his disregard for Ambrosia’s passion and weaves a compelling blend of truth and fiction. The reader not only gets a view of the abject poverty that governs Ambrosia’s life, but also of its deep spiritual roots and underlying passion. One truly understands why such a vulnerable, passionate young woman would be swayed by the charms of bad boy William Bonney and why, willing to accept his life on the run from the law, she dreams of running off to Mexico with him.

Rosary Without Beads is one of the best books I’ve read this year.