Skip to main content

REVIEW ON - THE DIVORCE RANCH BY CATHERINE MACDONALD



Genre: Fiction
Author: Catherine MacDonald
Title: The Divorce Ranch

The Divorce Ranch is light and fun reading. However, it is also a serious, thought-provoking read. Set in Reno, Nevada, it is based on the fact that in the 1930s, married men or women could get uncontested divorces as long as they could show they had resided in Reno for six weeks. As a result, a booming divorce ranch business was set up exclusively to help rich women spend their transitional status in style and comfort before they get their divorces. This story is set in the late ‘30s when other major changes were in the air – the Depression was settling in, World War Two was at its beginning stages, and women’s thinking were changing.

This novel cast of characters is a sample of the women who lived during that period. They find themselves lodging together on Washoe Ranch, a reputable divorce ranch. What these women all have in common is that they all conform or are made to conform to what is expected of them as women of that period.

Maggie is married to an older man chosen by her mother because he is rich and of social standing. However, he is unfaithful to her. Her mother sends her to Washoe Ranch to get a quick divorce because she wants Maggie to remarry a younger rich man and produce a grandchild for her.

Dorothy is a well-known Hollywood actress, married to another well-known actor, both for the sake of their careers. She surprises herself when she finds a way to change her glamorous life into something much more meaningful.

Claire arrives at the ranch broke and broken-hearted. Her stay is the most dramatic and the change she makes is also the most drastic. She needed to find her true self again and be ready to live the life she is meant to live.

You must read the book to find out the outcomes of these courageous women.

Catherine MacDonald is a wonderful writer. She writes an easy-to-read book with colorful characters through which she explores the complicated issue of women’s status and their liberation. This is a great novel full to the brim with the wonderful messages of breaking free to be oneself and live one’s life, no mater what society states. I highly recommend this book to everyone! Yuke Man, Reviewer Allbooks Review International, www.allbooksreviewint.com

Title: The Divorce Ranch
Author: Catherine MacDonald
Publisher: JADA Press, Atlanta, Georgia
ISBN: 978-0-9848365-7-4
Price: $12.95
Sept. 2013

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

MARGARET FIELAND INTERVIEW (guest blogger)

When did you first know you were destined to be a writer? LOL, I never realized I was destined to be a writer -- I fell into it. I'd written poetry for years, collecting it in notebooks stacked in my attic when I wrote one I wanted to keep. This led me to several online sites and ultimately to discovering the Muse Online Writers Conference where I hooked up with Linda Barnett Johnson and joined her writers forums. She required everyone to write both fiction and poetry, so, with much trepidation, I started writing fiction. Then I got hooked on it, wrote a chapter book, took the ICL course and actually learned how to write it. Then in 2010, I was seized by a desire to write a sci fi novel, so I spent six weeks or so on world building, mostly, with a bit of plotting thrown in for good measure. Who would you cite as your influences? I'm a way-back sci-fi fan, and Robert A. Heinlein influenced me heavily. I took a lot away from his writing, notably the value of surpris...
6 comments
Read more

A Tip for Authors: What to Put on the Back Cover of a Book

If you have accomplished the arduous task of writing a book, you may not embrace the job of choosing what to put on your book's back cover. Maybe you think that a short biography, along with a few endorsements should suffice. Actually the material on the back cover can carry out its intended job, without the presence of a two or three line bio. It does pay to highlight any endorsements you have received from experts within the industry, or from recognized members of government or society. Still, you may not have on file an endorsement that can stir up the emotions in a potential reader. Yet you have little reason to hope that the reader of the rear covering piece will elect to look at the pages between the covers, if you fail to trigger that same person's emotions. With that fact in mind, you must consider what emotions might push a book lover to purchase the publication that bears your name. Maybe that potential reader feels challeng...
Post a Comment
Read more

Those S and ES Endings by Mary Deal

These endings have always troubled me until I finally decided to get it right. Compare the versions and pick out the correct usages in this name ending with the letter s . The Joneses came for dinner. The Jones’s came for dinner. The Jones came for dinner. John Joneses car stalled. John Jones car stalled. John Jones’s car stalled. That Jones’s girl. That Joneses girl. That Jones girl. The correct sentences are: The Joneses came for dinner. John Jones’s car stalled. That Jones girl. Some tips: When a name ends with an s, and when speaking of the family as a group, add es , as in Joneses. When speaking about something John Jones owned, it is his property and, therefore, an apostrophe and s shows ownership, as in Jones’s . When speaking about a person in the singular, use only the name Jones. However, when speaking about a group of girls all named Jones, you would write that sentence: The Jones girls . Notice that the name stays...
2 comments
Read more