The drought seared the land, and the cotton was withering away… Every day it stayed the same: the heat and dust, the men gathered in the shade, waiting for the rain that refused to come. But for Rick McAllister, the youngest child on a Texas farm, the summer of 1956 was a season of violent storms, each one shaking his tender soul… His beautiful sister is leaving, his older brother is in a dangerous mood, and a shocking act of violence is hurtling Ricky toward a confrontation with an evil neighbor- and into a world where goodness and joy are as precious as the rain… In the tradition of T.R. Pearson’s A Short Story of a Small Place and Olive Ann Burn’s Cold Sassy Tree, here is a novel that weaves a powerful spell- right up to its last, stunning page.