The year is 1931 and Lucy Richards Arnold—now a mother of a 
precocious four-year-old son—is in rural West Texas, 
teaching in the school where her husband, Josh, is principal 
and struggling to make a success of their farm during the 
bleak, hard times of the Great Depression. Out of this 
barren landscape, rich and colorful characters emerge as if 
from a fertile land. Before the year’s end, Lucy is faced 
with a loss of such magnitude that she must struggle to find 
a way to recapture the joy in her very existence. 


“Wood has a rare gift for transcending the ordinary and this 
heartwarming continuation of her earlier novels . . . is no 
exception. . . . Wood’s narration is seamless, and she is 
especially masterful in creating believable characters, 
whether they’re protagonists or secondary figures. . . . a 
touching, often humorous novel.”
—Publishers Weekly


“This is a family to struggle with and hope for, a family 
that is almost torn apart but manages to pull together.
. . . If the families in Miller’s Family Pictures and Otto’s
How to Make an American Quilt touch the readers hearts,
then they will also be moved by Dance a Little Longer.”
—Library Journal


“Wood is adept at blending family memories and imagination 
into a fine story. After following them through three books, 
I’ll miss Lucy and Josh.”
—San Antonio Express-News


“A spirited, intelligent rendering of West Texas life in the 
early part of the century. Wood’s particular talent—and her 
talent appears to be huge—lies in descriptions so rife with 
color that the reader dreads reaching the novel’s end.”
—The Cape Cod Times


“This one will steal your heart and make you glad to be 
alive. . . . A thoroughly enjoyable, entirely too brief ride 
backward in time.”
—Valley Morning Star


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JANE ROBERTS WOOD received the Texas Institute of Letters 
award in 1998 for the Best Short Story and received a 
fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities to 
study at Yale, as well as a NEA Fellowship. A member of TIL 
and PEN, she lives with her husband, Dub, in Dallas, Texas.