The Lovebird
“You’re a girl as long as you allow life to happen to you,” a wise woman tells Margie Fitzgerald, the sensitive, lovelorn heroine of Brown’s debut novel. An impressionable college student when the story begins, Margie falls hard for her handsome, damaged Latin professor, Simon, a single father and dedicated animal rights activist. Simon brings Margie into his group H.E.A.R.T. (Humans Encouraging Animal Rights Today), and it isn’t long before Margie is joining protests and liberating animals from pet stores. When Simon abruptly ends their relationship, he leaves the group in her hands, and Margie goes to such extremes she’s arrested by the FBI. After another member puts up bail for her, the group convinces Margie to flee to an Indian reservation in Montana, where she is taken in by a Crow family: Jim, a single father; his mother, Evelyn; and his preteen daughter, Cora. In vibrant, colorful language that leaps off the page, Brown paints her winsome heroine’s coming-of-age with compassion and affection in this lush, compelling tale. --Kristine Huntley