Bel Ria

Novel: A generations-built sheep ranching dynasty pinnacled by a strong, beautiful woman, and her adopted son who sought her too late. (Listed as "novel"...but appears to have autobiographical tendencies?) 242 pages. Only in middle age does Amy McKinney find the courage to search out her real parents. Adopted from birth, she feels that she must know her real name and the family bonds that might be hers. Her search leads her to writer Thomas Burton, the narrator of the novel. Burton, dismayed to even think that his beloved mother could give up a child, peels away the family history: his great-grandparents; his grandmother, "the Sheep Queen of Idaho"; and, finally, his mother, the incredibly beautiful Elizabeth. Why had she hidden the birth of her daughter? When his owner is killed during the German invasion of France in the summer of 1940, a little performing dog changes the lives of successive caretakers as he journeys through the war-ravaged countryside looking for a permanent home Follows The Wanderings Of A Little Performing Dog In France, England, And At Sea During World War Ii.