Valentine

What is the fate of women in a world that belongs to men? And how hard is it to lift your head and finally start fighting for justice? Elizabeth Wetmore’s novel “Valentine” is a book of incredible force—powerful and righteously fierce.

America, the 1970s. An oil boom tears through Texas like a tornado, promising men wealth beyond anything they’ve ever seen. For women, it offers only the endless profit-drunk men who grow numb and the unceasing binge drinking they fall into. On the morning after Valentine’s Day, fourteen-year-old Gloria Ramirez appears on the doorstep of Mary Rose’s farm—beaten, terrified, begging for help. The news that a white oilman raped her spreads quickly through the small town, but few believe Gloria’s words.

“An enthralling debut… ‘Valentine’ is the story of how women—especially women without education and money—survive in a world of male cruelty. It is the story of their lives in a backwater oil town in the mid-1970s, which Wetmore seems to know so deeply that it hurts… A carefully constructed and emotionally gripping novel.” — The Washington Post

“A monument of a kind of mercy and true strength of spirit.” — Entertainment Weekly

“Fierce and complex, ‘Valentine’ is a novel of moral urgency and breathless prose. It is the very definition of a stunning debut.” — Ann Patchett

“I can’t believe Elizabeth Wetmore is a debut novelist. How did she break onto the scene with so much power and mastery? ‘Valentine’ is brilliant, sharp, tense, and devastating. Wetmore yanks cruel, grand West Texas out of men’s hands and gives the word back to the girls and women—the ones who have always suffered, always endured, and still left their mark in this hostile world. These astonishingly vivid and unforgettable female characters will stay with me forever.” — Elizabeth Gilbert