From Midwest Book Review, June 2006

Don't Let All The Pretty Days Get By, by novelist Bruce Hoppe, is the entertaining story of Teddy Gibbs in her career ending move from LA to her family's ranch in New Mexico for the purpose of taking care of her mother during a severe illness. Swiftly carrying readers through a humourous depiction of the many various marginalized communities of the twenty-first century west, Don't Let All The Pretty Days Get By creatively carries Teddy through her alliance with an unexpected and memorable cast of characters in order to save the cause of her family farm and expose the disturbing truths of the rural area to the local government. An original, entertaining, and nicely crafted novel, Don't Let All the Pretty Days Get By is very strongly recommended as a fast-paced work deftly depicting the diversity that now comprises the modern American West.

Book excerpt featured in Santa Fe publication, July 2006

A chapter of Don't Let All The Pretty Days Get By appears in the July 2006 issue of The Sun Monthly, a Santa Fe based magazine. The excerpt appears in the "Book Look" section entitled "An Irreverent Romp Through the New West." The feature also appeard on the following web page http://eldoradosun.com/Hoppe.htm at the magazine's web site.

Reviewed by Regan Windsor for Reader Views, September 2006

When a big pink derriere of a balloon, filled with nudists, comes crashing down on the New Mexico ranch, it spawns a chain of events and adventures, not even Teddy could imagine. Teddy Gibbs has returned to her family's ranch, after taking a leave of absence from her public relations job, to help her mother who is recovering from a recent stroke. She was also hoping to use the downtime to complete a book on Billy the Kid she had been struggling to complete. However, in the aftermath of the COHAB (Clothing Optional HotAir Ballooning) fiasco, there are criminal charges pending against the two ranch hands, Song and Dance, and the possibility of a civil suit against the ranch. Given Teddy's propensity to be where the action is, she has no choice but to quit her job and focus on the fight! The battle soon becomes a high chase political standoff armed with quirky characters, crazy antics, and unlikely love in some crazy places. Guaranteed to entertain, this light-hearted, zany novel also has its share of insights and observations. It is sure to have you situp and take notice, ensuring you "Don't Let All the Pretty Days Get By."

From Blogcritics, reviewed by Staci Schoff, October, 2006

What happens when Teddy Gibbs returns from L.A.to her family's ranch in New Mexico to care for her mother, only to find it necessary to protect her family's land from a clan of nudist balloonists and corrupt casino developers? What happens when she has the cojones but perhaps not the skill to act as her own attorney?

Naturally, mayhem and madness ensue.

As I began Bruce Hoppe's Don't Let All the Pretty Days Get By, I thought the story line seemed implausible and it was slow-going for the first fifty pages or so. By then I found myself believing, thanks to a tight storyline, diverse characters, witty banter, and rich commentary on the state of government, environmentalism and even on the nature (and usefulness) of outlaws. It's a page-turner from that point on.

On Hoppe's website he quotes Mark Twain as saying, "The truth must be told through humor...otherwise people will kill you." He does a great job of having his characters address a variety of western life's dilemmas in a humorous and original manner. As a bonus for history buffs, a philosophical Billy the Kid makes an appearance.

Hoppe has a gripping command of language, writing literary prose interspersed with dialect. His characters are colorful, sympathetic, and well developed, including a senator who claims to channel his dead predecessor among others. The dialog is fast paced and clever, but the novel is not without its shortcomings. Parts of the book are fraught with so much action that I found myself wishing it had come with a fast-forward button. A literary action novel is an interesting concept, but at times it was a little too light on the literary and a little too heavy on the action.

It is a fun read though, a good story with many interesting and quotable ideas such as, "It has always been the need of the timid to prove passion fatally flawed." While Hoppe is no Edward Abbey or John Nichols, if you liked The Monkey Wrench Gang or The Milagro Beanfield War, you just might like Don't Let All the Pretty Days Get By.

Kaye Trout's Book Reviews - February 28, 2007

This is a contemporary story about a young woman, Teddy Gibbs, nudist balloonists, New Mexico politics, and other crazy characters. As advertised on the back cover:
"Hoppe has figured out how to tell the story of the marginalized communities of the rural heartland in literary lingo that resonates far beyond its point or origin. In Don’t Let All The Pretty Days Get By he gives us a post-modern romp through the New West." This aspect of Hoppe’s writing is the key to the true value of this novel. He is an educated, experienced writer with a strong style and distinct sense of humor. I can certainly recommend this book, and it should be of particular interest to readers
in the Four Corners area.

From POD Critic, May 2007

Having decided to put the brakes on a promising career in L.A., Teddy Gibbs returns to her family’s New Mexico ranch to care for her ailing mother, but she soon discovers that her mother’s health isn’t her only concern. The book opens with a vivid scene that has a few members of the New Mexico chapter of COHAB (Clothing Optional Hot Air Ballooning) pulling an unscheduled balloon landing on her family’s horse pasture, and the balloon’s passengers emerge in the buff, to Teddy’s disdain. This awkward moment not only sets the book’s tone, it also provides us with a taste of the author’s expert hand, as he writes with a gentle, lyrical style that is both fitting and engrossing.

Things quickly come to a head, and Teddy, trying her hand at local politics, eventually challenges a proposed amendment that stands to benefit the Balloon Lollapalooza Committee—and, “If passed, the revision would tweak an obscure state law regulating hot air balloon flights. A clause would be added reducing the liability for damages resulting from balloon landings made on private property.” Teddy is also ready to act as amateur defense counsel in a pending criminal suit brought on by the nudist balloonists, which will determine the fate of the Gibbs’ two part-time ranch hands, nicknamed Song and Dance—then there is the threat of a possible civil suit that may eventually decide the fate of the family’s ranch altogether.

A lot happens in the book, and over the course of it, we, like the central character herself, are taken through the exquisite New West, with its “browning countryside” and “[t]he rolling swales of pale short-grass” that give “way to the mesa cliffs in the distance, their rusty iron-laden rocledges carved in relief by the low-angled rays of morning sun.” We are given a tour of this vast landscape, where politicos with shady ambitions run amuck, and Indian gaming casinos take center stage. We are greeted with colorful characters, and we hear tell of others, like the scientist who had “been testing the use of electro magnetic force fields to power medical equipment at a teaching hospital when patients mysteriously began levitating above the examination table during MRI scans.” Yes, the book, on a whole, makes for a delightful and interesting reading experience.

Hoppe’s descriptions are cinematic; his dialogue, etched from life, as characters talk like real people, their speech patterns, vernaculars, and argots delivered with surprising authenticity. And though the book is slow going at the outset, Hoppe picks up the pace before long, successfully blending action, humor, political rhetoric, and unique insights. He delivers a Neo-Western with aplomb, affording his readers a ringside seat at a thrilling prize fight that pits a gaming magnate against a brave little alliance of anarchistic locals bent on exposing political subterfuge and restoring a semblance of order to their community.