Review
23 BookBrowse readers read The Scent of Rain and Lightning
before it was first released, rating it an average 4.5 out of 5.0.
Here are some of their glowing comments:
Fair warning to the reader who starts this book, you will be immediately pulled into its all-encompassing plot (Robin F). Nancy Pickard is one of those masterful story tellers who can, in the first 11 pages, tell you the life-defining tragedy of the central character, then flash back to (some of) the events leading up to that tragedy, and keep the reader eagerly turning pages for the next half of the book (Mary G). Once I was hooked it became a compulsion to read in one sitting. It becomes a whodunit mystery and love story, but it also deals with human behavior, how we judge people by past behavior and conclude that that judgment is consistent at all times, with...
Beyond the Book
Monument Rocks
Nancy Pickard says that the fictional Testament Rocks in
The Scent of Rain and Thunder are based on Monument Rocks located in Gove County, Kansas, a few hundred miles west of her home in Merriam, close to Kansas City.
Set in the high plains, Gove County is cut through from west to east by a deep valley caused by the Smoky Hill River, and is lined with geologic splendors such as Castle Rock and Monument Rocks (pictured below).
The 70 foot high limestone formations known as Monument Rocks or the Chalk Pyramids (chalk being a type of limestone), originally...
