I began reading A Sandhills Ballad in the afternoon and found myself, at three in the morning, finishing the last page. Mary’s story is at once sad and brave, tender and compelling. Ladette Randolph knows well the rhythms and variations of life in Nebraska’s Sandhills, where men and women face loss without complaint and celebrate their days with a love of family and land and community that runs like a quiet stream beneath the seamless prose of this novel.