Jeannie Burt’s non-fiction writing career has stretched over a decade. Now, she is turning her pen—and her keyboard—to fiction. She has completed one novel and is currently working on two more.

Editors are reviewing her first work, The Family Man:

"I used to think if you didn’t take a breath, or blink, or didn’t make any other kind of move, nothing would ever change, and you could hold onto that moment and that day, and you could count on it. But I came to learn you could hold your breath forever and it wouldn’t make one inch of difference. Looking back, I could blame everything on the storm. Only it wasn’t the storm, it was the times, and the way we lived, and the way we looked away when things weren’t what we wanted them to be."

Jack McIntyre is a farmer in remote northeastern Oregon. His story begins the day, in 1976, when a wild fifteen-year-old girl disappears from Jack’s small community. The girl was his daughter’s best friend and, as a young girl, the wild teen was like one of Jack’s family. Her life has not been easy. After the death of her father, her circumstances turned tremendously abusive and ugly and, as a teen-ager, she grew rebellious, sexy, loud and troublesome. When she vanishes, the community seems relieved, the town dusts its hands and says, Good riddance . Jack’s religious wife says, It is the will of the Lord Jesus Christ that she be punished for her sins.

But Jack cares deeply about the girl. The town’s attitudes, as well as and her mother’s, devastate Jack’s daughter. In spite of everyone else, Jack feels he must find the girl.

He does not know where to begin. At the Police station in Pendleton, he finds that no one has reported her missing. He fills out forms and begins a journey that will wrest him from his protected life of complacency and toss him in Montreal Canada and to the underbelly of life he could never have dreamed.

Praise for The Family Man:

"Jeannie Burt brings to her novel The Family Man a bone-deep understanding of and compassion for the lives of working farm families in the American West. It’s a rare enough thing, to encounter characters who are working farmers, rarer still to see them as figures of complexity, neither cliches nor caricatures; even more astonishing, that Jack McIntyre could stand in for any one of us, as his story echoes the actualities of all our modern lives. It’s a remarkably moving novel, heartbreaking and hopeful; there are scenes of great power; but what strikes me most about this novel is that is true, and real." Molly Gloss, author, "The Hearts of Horses", "The Jump-Off Creek" , "Wild Life"

"In this remarkable novel, Jeannie Burt turns a keen eye to the modern West—its hard times and powerful characters. Facing weather that devastates his crops and a corrosive culture that threatens his teenaged daughter and her best friend, Jack McIntyre, a quiet rancher, must face change or lose everything he values. Set in the dramatic landscapes of Eastern Oregon and the seamy underside of Montreal, The Family Man celebrates a father’s love and responsibility while offering insight into the strength of the Western heart. Jeannie Burt’s important debut signals that another powerful voice has joined the chorus of outstanding women writing about the West." Craig Lesley, author of "The Sky Fisherman" , "Winterkill" , and "Burning Fences"