Women of a Promiscuous Nature by Donna Everhart
How have most of us never heard of the American Plan? Donna Everhart’s new novel delves deeply into this troubling early-20th-century government program, propounded to keep servicemen healthy but used as a way to control women and their bodies. The State Farm colony she depicts is more prison than reform school, and the things that happen to the young women kept there would be hard to believe were they not based on actual historical records. After witnessing some difficult scenes of punishment and even medical mistreatment, I was grateful to watch the young women work together secretly to fight against the superintendent and her misguided authority. I rooted for Ruthie, an independent career woman; I felt for Stella, a pregnant teen abused by her father; and I marveled at the misunderstood Frances. This novel, perfect for book clubs, will start important conversations about the ongoing topic of women’s freedom and autonomy.
Women of a Promiscuous Nature by Donna Everhart, (List Price: $18.95, Kensington, 9781496740724, January 2026)
Reviewed by Lady Smith, The Snail on the Wall in Huntsville, Alabama
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I’ve always been a writer who puts character first, and when I embarked on writing this novel, I was prepared for some deep character dives. But Buckeye is larger in scope and size than anything I’d ever attempted, and I had no idea of the depths that awaited me… What I learned–what I keep learning, as a writer–is that when you bring a lot of characters together, a story emerges, and it’s not always the story you thought you were going to write.
I wanted to write a controlled, intense, strange, sensual, truthful novel set firmly in a genre I’m increasingly thinking of as wonder. You can watch a romcom where someone is covered with bees and they’re terrified, and you’re laughing, so their experience is not the same as your experience. Likewise, you can be watching a horror film, and they think they’re having a normal Monday, and you know better. That’s where the horror happens.
