Rosary Without Beads is a back-hills narrative for the 1800’s Lincoln County War. The novel reboots Billy the Kid’s academic legend and gives voice to the silent story haunting the hills of New Mexico. Ambrosia Salazar, a sheepherder’s daughter, battles against a traditional Catholic betrothal to Ramon in lustful trade for Billy. The story promises passion, Wild West violence and emotional … courage as Ambrosia discovers defiant talents of her own.
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Travel back in time to New Mexico Territory’s Lincoln County war which ran from 1878 to 1881. Rosary Without Beads captures the romance of the legend of Billy the Kid. Told in the unique voice of Ambrosia Salazar, a sheepherder’s daughter, filled with language tethered to the earth with occasional breaks into either lust or heaven or moments that are both. The language is lyrical and unique. There is an understated passion that is far sexier than most blatant romances and unique turns of phrase that fully embody Ambrosia’s internal struggle between her lust for Billy the Kid and a more traditional to Ramon, based more in financial terms than in true love (Ramon lusts after Ambrosia’s sister, Sinfarosa, who has traded farm life for the brothel).
Holguín-Balogh shows Billy’s charm as well as his disregard for Ambrosia’s passion and weaves a compelling blend of truth and fiction. The reader not only gets a view of the abject poverty that governs Ambrosia’s life, but also of its deep spiritual roots and underlying passion. One truly understands why such a vulnerable, passionate young woman would be swayed by the charms of bad boy William Bonney and why, willing to accept his life on the run from the law, she dreams of running off to Mexico with him.
Rosary Without Beads is one of the best books I’ve read this year.
It is difficult to know where to begin reviewing this book. It is, without a doubt, the most amazing, captivating, and vivid historical novel I’ve read in a long, long time.
The subject matter itself is gripping: William Bonney, Billy the Kid. For a man who lived such a short life, Billy the Kid cast a long shadow over the history of the American West. No matter what you think of him—anti-hero or sociopath, there is no denying the lure of his brief, violent existence on our collective imagination.
Holguin-Balogh has skillfully woven what we know to be historically true with what might have been and she has created something magical. The story grows in such an organic, compelling fashion the pages almost turn themselves.
The story is told by Ambrosia Salazar, a young Mexican woman who somehow manages to hold her family together in spite of crushing poverty, war, and the arrival of William Bonney into her life. Daughter, sister, lover, mother, healer, care-taker, and more, Ambrosia is the glue that keeps her small world together.
The writing is gritty and brutal but the author manages to show glimpses of the beauty in Ambrosia’s harsh Nineteenth Century existence. There are lyrical and beautiful phrases on almost every page and Holguin-Balogh is a master at painting a vivid picture with her words. Clever, honest lines like, “His half-smile made me feel undressed without a tree to hide behind” abound and there is plenty of humor in the story, even though life in the New Mexico Territory is a hardscrabble existence.
Reading Rosary without Beads is the closest I have come to time travel. What an incredible debut.
A hauntingly lovely story, almost lyrical in its telling, that has stayed with me long after I turned the last page.
I’ve always been a little puzzled by the obsession with Billy The Kid. He seemed to me to be just another womanizing outlaw. Well, he was an outlaw and he did like the ladies. But Diana Holguín-Balogh’s characterization of him in Rosary Without Beads helped me to see just why he might have been so attractive then and why we still think of him with a touch of respect. The strong narrative voice of this book is a refreshing change from most historical fiction these days—the characters and their dialogue are fresh and alive but still feel 19th century New Mexican.