Excerpt from I Am Agatha by Nancy Foley, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

She invited me to sleep on the bedroll with her, and in the dim of night her face was a craggy mountain beneath a snowy nightcap. She turned toward me, propped her head in one hand. Where do you come from? she asked. But I wouldn't say because I had grown more watchful in my time alone and didn't believe in giving things away. What do we do now? I asked her instead.

She touched my cheek. She said that I should look only at her and never away, that a river existed inside me, full of power, and she would set it free. I was only briefly surprised when everything she said proved true, as I had already dreamed of its existence. Afterward she pulled a rough blanket over us and fell asleep, but not before boasting that I would never forget her. I lay in the dark with my heart now beating strongly, and my true life with it.

Some of the widows had feelings for Ma Binney, while others turned to me. When we were quiet together the widows told me about men they loved who left, about men who stayed when they weren't wanted, also about children who died or grew up ungrateful. I saw that they were happiest when they could weep, so I did not comfort them. I sketched their portraits in exchange for butterscotch candy, pieces of soap, or darned socks, and once a frayed silk camisole that I traded away for a man's undershirt. The widows swapped these portraits like valentines, and never since have I enjoyed such satisfaction in the market for my work.

In Nebraska Ma Binney presented me with a banged-up tin case of watercolor paints, the colors cracked like dried-up rouge. Go on now, paint me something, she said, and by something she meant herself. There isn't a person alive who doesn't know their good side, and Ma Binney offered me her left one straight off. But I closed the tin and turned away because I knew by the feeling inside me that painting her wasn't in me to do. I drew when it humored me, when I had a pencil and a bit of paper, and at the time it was never more than that. At a revival tent near Lincoln, I saw a dark-haired girl in a blue dress who rang the bell for the start of the meeting. I discovered that two people can look at each other and right away understand they want something. We met at night in a grassy hollow at the edge of a pasture, and her skin lit up like prairie fire when I touched her. Afterward we lay on our backs and I pointed out the fingernail moon. She said, That woman whose thumb you're under looks rough.

I'm under no one's thumb, I said, surprised.

The girl was disbelieving. Why it's clear as day you are. As she spoke those words I knew that she was right, and I did not like it.

Where you been? Ma Binney asked crossly when I slipped back into her bed, but I wouldn't answer, because all my thoughts had turned against her.

The next day the revival tent was gone, along with the dark-haired girl. By suppertime I had decided I was done with Ma Binney and her widows. When I said good-bye, Ma Binney hauled off and slapped me. The widows held her back and also gave me boiled sweets to take along. I didn't ration them as advised but sucked on one after another until it was all behind me.

Excerpted from I Am Agatha by Nancy Foley. Copyright © 2026 by Nancy Foley. Excerpted by permission of Avid Reader Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.