All the Wind in the World by Samantha Mabry (review)

Drought has stripped the United States of most vegetation, so Sarah and James move from ranch to ranch as jimadors, cutting maguey, valued for its distillation into alcohol. Their latest gig is at the Real Marvelous, rumored to be cursed by a witch, but Sarah and James don't buy into hexes—they're busy running cons on fellow fieldhands to get extra cash. Sarah's initially certain James is running a bigger scheme when she sees him chatting up the wealthy owner's daughter, but as he spends more time in the ranch house and leaves Sarah in the fields, she's not so sure. Then weevils infest the crop, swarms of bees attack the workers, a supposed prophet is whipping up the jimadors to rebellion, and Sarah has to make a choice between her own safety and her future (now uncertain) with James. That Sarah and James have managed to grow something that even resembles love out of the barren landscape of tragedy that surrounds them is a feat unto itself, and their romance manages a sweet balance of passionate attraction and deep affection that makes its dissolution even more heartbreaking. The grit and dust can almost be felt on the pages through Mabry's evocative, searing prose; the increasing humiliation of the fieldhands and their hopelessness makes the tension nearly suffocating, and Old Testament allusions give the book a further sense of doom. A horrific event brings Sarah and James back to each other, but desperation has laid bare the cracks in their relationship; readers will suspect that those fissures may eventually grow into canyons even as they leave the book with Sarah and James reunited.