"Grabs Your Heart and Doesn't Let Go"

Jann Alexander
3 days ago
2 min read

The Historical Novel Society Highlights Unspoken as an Editors' Choice selection, a book that “will stick around in your mind, because legacy isn’t just what’s passed down. It’s what you refuse to let slip away.”

Unspoken is an EDITORS' CHOICE selection from The Historical Novel Society Reviews, in November 2025, HNR 114 issue. Read the full review:

EDITORS' CHOICE

Unspoken (The Dust Series)

WRITTEN BY JANN ALEXANDER

Ruby Lee Becker’s silence is louder than any storm. Born into the swirling dust of the Panhandle in 1935, she loses so much so young—home, innocence, family—and much of the rest of her life becomes a struggle to name what broke her.

Alexander’s writing hits that dust in your lungs. The novel shifts between Ruby’s experiences in Waco, the children’s home, and later adulthood, along with her mother Willa Mae’s parallel world behind the asylum walls. Sometimes those interludes slow the forward drive, but each one carves more of Ruby’s shape. They tell us why she can’t stay silent, why she pushes for voice, reclamation, even when speaking costs her everything.

"This novel is for folks who want historical fiction that grabs your heart and doesn’t let go."

I felt tethered to Ruby in a way that pulled me forward. Her longing to rescue her mother, her repeated failures, her grit—they felt like my own lungs filling with dust. The side characters—Ida Rose, Josef Richter, Will Becker—don’t just orbit Ruby, they reflect parts of what family can be, beyond blood.

The Texas Panhandle in Unspoken is tough country—storms, drought, loss—but Ruby meets it head-on, rebuilding her life and her land with quiet determination. There’s grit and grace here. Ruby survives and creates something lasting, something that feels like home.

This novel is for folks who want historical fiction that grabs your heart and doesn’t let go. Unspoken will stick around in your mind, because legacy isn’t just what’s passed down. It’s what you refuse to let slip away.

— Williamaye Jones for the Historical Novel Society Reviews