When an oil and gas company’s encroachment on Nicole’s family property steals away the bucolic life the family had known for years, Nicole begins a wild and provocative journey, aligning herself  with a group that engages in acts of civil disobedience, attending fire circles where pagan rituals are performed, and participating in a CNN interview that goes off the rails.  

Before the crisis, Nicole began a relationship with Joe, who works for the Pennsylvania state senator representing the area where she lives. This is deep in the Marcellus Shale region and the senator is hell-bent on exploiting the fracking boom to improve the economy in his region.  Watching Nicole and her family experience their sorrow causes Joe to ask ethical questions that he’d never before considered.  He also observes questionable behavior by business and government power brokers. But is all this enough to cause him to take actions that may jeopardize his career and betray the trust of those he works with? 

Joe and Nicole’s lives sometimes complement each others’ and sometimes conflict.  Their checkered history is tested as each navigates the question of how to live according to what they believe is most important and worth fighting for.

To listen to the interview, please press here

“A pitch-perfect novel of a challenged and challenging human relationship in contemporary times, "Bountiful Calling" by Fred Burton is a deftly crafted and impressively engaging story by an author with a genuine flair for originality and a distinctive kind of narrative-driven and entertaining storytelling style. While especially and unreservedly recommended for community library Contemporary General Fiction collections, it should be noted for personal reading lists that "Bountiful Calling" is also readily available in a digital book format.” -- Midwest Book Review

“...When Nicole faces terrible loss, she must decide what path to take. And when damaging information comes into Joe’s hands, he must decide whose side he’s on. Burton presents a paean to the idyllic landscape and lifestyles fracking has destroyed. Well-informed on the mechanics of fracking and its devastating health impacts, as well as the deleterious alliance between politicians and corporations, Burton dramatizes how the game is fixed against communities and offers wide-ranging commentary on the values of our society.” -- Booklist

“Perhaps the most important benefit of good fiction is that it allows the reader to experience the drama and emotions of the characters in the story in ways that non-fiction can’t do. Thus, good fiction gives us insights to human experiences that are often missed in our day-to-day lives.  Fred Burton’s powerful novel Bountiful Calling, about the lives of people caught up in the explosive forces unleashed by the natural gas boom in Pennsylvania is not only an excellent and well-plotted story, but also describes very plausible emotional responses of those caught up in the highly contentious civic warfare over gas fracking that erupted less than two decades ago. Because the characters in this book are believable, understanding their hopes and fears deepens the reader’s empathy for those who continue to be engaged in disputes about the potential impacts of natural gas development on the environment from activities backed by some who benefit economically. Because the intensity of disputes about the acceptability of fossil fuel combustion is likely to deepen in the decades ahead, an understanding of the emotional life of some affected by fossil fuel controversies provided by this novel will enhance the reader’s insights about the human dimensions of important civic challenges still unfolding.” -- Donald A. Brown, Scholar in Residence and Professor, Sustainability Ethics and Law, Widener University Commonwealth Law School