A Stone's Throw

The year was 1969 when twelve-year-old Maggie Stone’s world suddenly begins to spin out of control. Her mother, Lillian Stone, who suffers from a mysterious mental or neurological condition that frequently sends her to bed in an unresponsive state for hours at a time, has forced Maggie to be the responsible adult at far too young of age. When her mother goes into a debilitating spell that she cannot be revived from, Lillian ends up in a San Francisco hospital and Maggie is dispatched to an orphanage. As Maggie deals with her conflicting emotions, she finds herself both fiercely protective and scornful of her mother’s abandonment.

And just as she’s beginning to adjust to a tough new life at the orphanage, a grandfather she’s never met suddenly appears to turn her life even further upside down. Ira Stone, who has been estranged from his daughter Lillian since she ran from home pregnant at fifteen, shows up on the orphanage doorstep and whisks Maggie away to his ranch in remote eastern Montana. Ira is a hard man of few words who has etched out his successful ranch through backbreaking work in the unforgiving plains of Montana. A widower and a WWl veteran with battle scars, Ira struggles to relate to a young preteen he has never met. Having to adapt to volatile circumstances with her mother over the years, a tough-skinned Maggie swallows her emotions and makes the best of a completely foreign situation.

As a young girl on the cusp of womanhood but still a child who has spent her life taking care of her mother, Maggie is thrust into a completely foreign situation with no cultural or geographical familiarity to her life in San Francisco. Without her mother and close friends she can relate to, Maggie feels abandoned, unloved and resentful. She is fearful for her mother and her future, and is insecure about meeting the expectations of a stern and demanding grandfather in learning her new roles and responsibilities on the ranch and caring for animals she has never seen.

 As one reviewer states: “…it is all so intricately described through vivid descriptions and authentically poignant emotions. The organic transformation of Maggie and Ira’s relationship, and her assimilation into the small rural community is so beautifully drawn. I laughed. I cried. I cheered. I fell in love with this story and highly recommend it to young adults and adults alike.”