Lyn Roberts, manager, Square Books, Oxford, Miss.
Ron Rash's Serena (Ecco, Oct.) opens in 1929 as newlyweds George and Serena Pemberton arrive in the highlands of North Carolina to oversee their scorched earth logging operation. Equally ruthless, they turn their marriage into a blood pact as much as a civil union. Serena quickly proves as capable as any man in the camp and more fearsome as she surveys the logging crews on her white Arabian stallion with her eagle trained to kill timber rattlers. She and George let nothing stand in their way—timid business partners, plans for a national park, Pemberton's pregnant former mistress or the law. If it were possible for Shakespeare to take a darker turn, Ron Rash has done it in this novel, sort of an Appalachian retelling of Macbeth. Lady Macbeth is the meekest maid compared to Serena, however. Rash has boldly taken on the timeless story of boundless ambition and explored its depth and texture.
