A successful businesswoman in her own right, the Sikes' small-town bank survived one rural crisis after another, as family after family lost their land held for generations. Sikes watched rural towns decline from being hubs of railroad, ranching, and farming activity to decaying, sleepy villages. Sikes' novel, Suns Go Down , looks at the relationships of one of these families, set in the 1950s era, whose existence has been threatened by unstoppable postwar change . . . The Lutz family, in Suns Go Down , was one of those family units with everything to lose as the postwar industrial wave began to swallow up their lives and their land. Sikes depicts the ups and downs of an established family in a small town with a natural ease. . .
Suns Go Down is a true entertainment in the best tradition of the family saga .
Shirley Sikes' name should, and will, become a familiar one to anyone who truly cares about good fiction. Shirley Sikes, award-winning author of thirty short stories and articles, has completed her first historical novel, Suns Go Down , the story of a prominent Kansas ranching family, set in the lush Flint Hills of Kansas during the 1950s. A native Kansan, Sikes' roots extend deep in the state. A retired banking executive, Shirley Sikes served on the Board of Directors of the Kansas Banker's Association from 1991-1994. Now of Tucson, Sikes has been active in Creative Writing workshops at the University of Arizona, Tucson, and has been a featured reader for its Writers at Work series.