In a Distant Valley (The Dalton Novels)

In a Distant Valley (The Dalton Novels)

Both a love letter and a window into the rural places that have shaped many, In a Distant Valley sets the stage for a final act to play out across a deep winter in snowy Maine.  For a while, Rose Douglas believed life had given her a break. She was enjoying a steady job at the local clinic in Dalton; her two young boys, Adam and Brandon, were doing well in school; and their little family had found an easy friendship with widower Nate Theroux and his daughter, Sophie. The possibility of something deeper even hung between her and Nate—until the day Tommy Merchant, her ex and the father of her sons, showed up without warning on her doorstep. While Rose knows all too well his erratic and abusive nature, he swears he’s clean, and ready to turn over a new leaf.  Tommy isn’t the only one who’s found his way back to the town that defined him. Lost after a disastrous stint living down south with her father, Angela Muse has returned home to Dalton. There she runs into Greg Fortin, the friend who once saved her life when they were children and finally starts to believe there may be someone who understands her in a world that offers more questions than answers.   But secrets are the lifeblood of a small town, and everyone in Dalton soon finds themselves part of a chain of events hurtling towards outcomes beyond their control, where more than one future will be decided. Brimming with compassion and heart, In a Distant Valley is the remarkable conclusion to the story readers have been following since Shannon Bowring’s debut novel, The Road to Dalton .  Praise for Where the Forest Meets the River “This slice of life cuts deep.”— Publishers Weekly   “Bowring brilliantly evokes people’s inner lives through small, illuminating moments, not unlike Sherwood Anderson, and fills the novel with thoughtful and comic one-liners that ring true. . . A moving portrait of the ways people survive palpable, harrowing grief.”— Kirkus Reviews  “Bowring focuses on inner lives. Her subtle, empathetic rendering of everyday joys and sorrows in the eddy of Bridget's death rings true.”— Booklist   “Quotidian, yes: boring, no. Bowering weaves them together in their new aspects, giving hints of future possibilities in book three.”— Lavender Magazine   “Like Elizabeth Strout and Richard Russo, Shannon Bowring excels in bringing families and small towns to life in all their interconnected complexity.”— Read Her Like An Open Book  Praise for The Road to Dalton   ★ “Bowring offers endless, rich details about life in Dalton, making a satisfying story of each chapter, expanding the emotional history of the place, yielding great depths of pain behind small, daily gestures of human connection... An impressive debut bursting with detail and love for the town it brings to life.”— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)   “An unexpected death touches everyone, a plot point that Bowring confidently steers away from melodrama, landing instead on poignant realism. Readers will want to take their time with this one.”— Publishers Weekly   “Readers will get swept away by the kitchen sink drama of this read—and believe me, there’s plenty of drama to be had here—and will wish that Bowring isn’t done with Dalton and a sequel may be in the works. That’s how powerful her writing is.”— Zachary Houle, Medium   “Paved with beauty, grace, humility, and love…a triumphant work that reminds us what literature should be.”— Morgan Talty, author of Night of the Living Rez   “The kind of book that too often flies under the literary radar these days: measured, wise, beautiful.”— Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Empire Falls   “Over and over, The Road to Dalton locates the miraculous in the mundane, then holds it up, glimmering, for the reader to see. In the end it reminds us that, no matter our circumstances, each of us is imbued with a dignity that cannot be denied or taken from us.”— Ron Currie, Jr., author of Everything Matters and The One-Eyed Man   Shannon Bowring ’s work has appeared in numerous journals and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net prizes. Her debut novel, The Road to Dalton , was chosen as one of NPR’s Books We Love in 2023 and won the Maine Literary Book Award for Fiction. Her second novel, Where the Forest Meets the River , was featured in Oprah Daily’s Best Books of Fall in 2024. Shannon resides in Maine.