Book excerpt: Sadie Hawkmoon, the gritty and enigmatic heroine of Nancy Williams's exciting first novel, never had a simple life. Hawkmoon follows Sadie's journey as she is abducted from the circus as a young child and forced to live on the unforgiving open plains by Ice, a brutal horse thief, and his vicious band of outlaws. Dominated mentally, emotionally, and physically, Sadie is forced to kill and surrender her body as Ice's unwilling lover over the course of several years. At long last, she daringly escapes the clutches of her makeshift family and tries to start her life anew. With the help of a troubled yet charismatic horse trader, Sadie begins to discover what it means to trust and to love, although leaving her nightmarish past behind turns out to be no easy featIce looms like a storm on the horizon, obsessed with getting Hawkmoon back.