Iona Moon: A Novel

Melanie Rae Thon

Dec 2014 · Open Road Media

About this ebook

In the unforgiving vortex of the American heartland, when you have to choose, you always choose life

For Iona Moon, the open fields of the Kila Flats and the town of White Falls are centuries apart rather than the distance of a few miles. Mocked and feared by her classmates, Iona is only desirable to beautiful, brilliant Jay Tyler when they’re in the backseat of Willy Hamilton’s Chevy. Passion offers relief from the abuse of her older brothers and the sorrow of her mother’s slow surrender to cancer. But transient pleasures do not lead to grace—and Iona discovers she must escape everything she knows before she can learn to love the ones who have harmed her.
 
Sensual, haunting, and tender, Iona Moon is a cry for independence, a demand for respect, and a realization that all worlds are cruel in their own ways.

About the author

Melanie Rae Thon is an American author of novels and short stories. Originally from Kalispell, Montana, Thon received her BA from the University of Michigan and her MA from Boston University. Her writing has been published in The Best American Short Stories, the Pushcart Prize anthologies, The O. Henry Prize Stories, Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists, Conjunctions, Tin House, and the Paris Review. Thon is a recipient of the Whiting Writers’ Award, the Reading the West Book Award, and the Gina Berriault Award, as well as two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and one from the Tanner Humanities Center. She has also been a writer in residence at the Lannan Foundation. Thon’s works have been translated into nine languages. She lives in Salt Lake City and teaches at the University of Utah.