This Tender Land
by William Kent Krueger 
2019 
Read by Scott Brick – 14h 19m
Rating – 7.5  / historical fiction 

I’ve read a few of Krueger’s books,  Iron Lake (the first of his Cork O’Connor series), another of that series and Amazing Grace, a stand-alone.  This Tender Land is another stand alone. 

This one is a bit weird.  I’d call it Young Adult, ages 16-=22 or so and interested in miracles and spirituality.  

This book has quite a lot of tension on its own,  but with Scott Brick as narrator it sometimes feels a bit over-the-top. I got used to him though, and by half way he was perfect.  The plot involves two teenage boys and a younger brother  who run away from their Indian School taking a little orphan girl with them.  The setting is south central Minnesota in 1932  the Great Depression and the time of the Bonus Marches.  They travel on their own to St. Louis.. 

Parts of this are really fun reading,  other parts are pretty gruesome and some ore schmaltzy. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army