High Strung

No loose-ends are left undone in this novel about a thirty-something returning home to find closure regarding her past. Dalton masterfully weaves the Vietnam era to the present while presenting parents many of us know very well: flawed, ill-fated, but loving, nonetheless, in their own quirky ways. With characters not unlike those from a McMurtry novel, the reader will find him or herself laughing and crying with their struggles, compelled to turn each pleasurable page, to follow them to the book's end.

This is one of those few and far between books that both my husband and I enjoyed. The interesting characters and unfolding plot kept our attention until the end. I can't wait until Quinn has her next book published!

This book is terrific. The characters are quirky, but they ring true. The double mother and daughter plots are intriguiing as the two characters work through intersecting demons to figure out their lives. It's a great read for the chick-lit crowd and for those who lived through the peace, love and protest bombs. This was a fun read and a very thought-provoking novel. I'll be looking for more from Quinn Dalton.

I had the pleasure of reading an early copy of this book for blurb purposes, a blurb I happily handed over. It's a stunner of a debut! Keep an eye out for Dalton's short story collection -- Bulletproof Girl. The stories are complex and startling and stunning, ripe for discussions about womanhood in contemporary American society.

I liked this book and would recommend it without hesitation. The strength is the narrator, Merle. At her best, Merle's voice is authentic; she's smart, witty, passionate almost without realizing it. Merle's observations and her plight struck a definite chord with me as one of those, like her, who grew up in the seventies and eighties, went off to conquer the world (or at least edit porn books in London -- Merle, not me) in the nineties, and is now back nosing around the past, taking stock of how life and our loves have unfolded so far. The author, Quinn Dalton, offers up very sharp insights and a ruthless humor, the kind that comically but firmly doesn't allow people to wriggle free from accountability for their own actions. Great work in a first novel!