This is Jenn Delperdang with the Sioux City Public Library, and you’re listening to Check It Out.
I love it when a book surprises me—when the story is not at all what I expected, but the writing and storytelling is so good that it draws me in. Today I am recommending The Reckless Oath We Made by Bryn Greenwood--a novel that caught me completely by surprise—and I couldn’t put it down.
Zhorzha Trego—who usually goes by “Zee” is living a life resigned to the world heaping misery on her. Her father died in prison when she was younger, and her mother became a recluse and a hoarder. She’s trying to pay off medical bills from a motorcycle accident that left her dealing with chronic pain by working as a waitress and doing drug runs for some shady characters. And now her beautiful sister who volunteers at an area prison has been taken hostage by escaped inmates on the run, and she’s left to care for her five-year old nephew in the middle of a media circus.
Gentry Frank is on the autism spectrum. He speaks only in Middle English, spars with real swords, practices medieval chivalry, and hears four distinct voices that speak to him. The voice known as ‘The Witch’ tells Gentry that he is to be the champion of Lady Zhorzha Trego after they meet at physical therapy.
Thus, begins a story told through multiple perspectives that is a gritty, contemporary fairy tale with a cast of characters that are complex, flawed, generous and completely human.
Check out The Reckless Oath We Made by Bryn Greenwood at the Sioux City Public Library or download it for free on the Libby app. For even more book recommendations, subscribe to our podcast, The First Fifty Pages.
Support for Check It Out on Siouxland Public Media comes from Avery Brothers.
