The Wake of Forgiveness by Bruce Machart

I received this book for free from Barnes and Noble as part of their First Look program. As we haven't yet finished discussing the book on the forums, I'll put the rest of my review behind a cut.
While this book was beautifully written, there was a lot of violence and cruelty in this book. After Vaclav Skala's beloved wife dies giving birth to their fourth son, Karel, Vaclav becomes cruel and unforgiving--to the extent of harnessing his sons to the plow rather than use his race horses for farm work. When a rich, Mexican man comes with three daughters he inexplicably wants to wed to three of Skala's four sons, trouble starts. Although there's clearly an attempt for the patterns of blame and guilt (which are as much a result of the hard land and bad luck as bad decisions) to be resolved in forgiveness by the book's end, I found the plot to be somewhat contrived--so it ultimately didn't come together for me. Beautifully written, but definitely a book I'd rather check out of the library than buy.