“Where Coyotes Howl” is a charming tale of love and loss on the prairie

Denver’s own Sandra Dallas, author of more than a dozen novels, says her latest may be her “best one yet.”

Apparently readers agree, because it’s already been on the Tattered Cover’s best-seller list and is in its second printing.

“Where Coyotes Howl,” published in April by St. Martin’s Press, follows Ellen Webster, a young woman in 1916 Iowa who sees an ad for a schoolteacher in tiny Wallace, Wyo., and is chosen for the job because she is the most comely applicant.

Ellen is ill-prepared for the harsh conditions of frontier life but is soon swept off of her feet by cowboy Charlie Bacon. (One sweet scene harkens back to  “Oklahoma,” when Ellen’s picnic basket fetches the most money in bidding by her paramour.) Together, they face the worst of what the High Plains in the early 1900s can toss at them.

And I do mean worst: The unforgiving extremes of the weather in the winter and summer, isolation, lack of medical care and basic necessities all constantly conspire to defeat the small group of residents who are attempting to create homes and families in the rural area around the two-street town.

The characters are well-drawn: We root for naive Ellen and shy Charlie as they fall in love; commiserate with Ruth McGinty as she endures torments from her cruel husband; appreciate the Gurleys for their successes in ranching and generosity of spirit; and feel compassion toward the prostitutes of Wallace for their fate.

In fact, it is Dallas’ deep affection for the novel’s supporting characters that give it its power.

While Dallas makes every attempt to show us the good in the community through the veil of a tender love story, death is everywhere — and few come out of this novel unscathed.