There is something awfully familiar about Jack Todd’s second novel, set in 1930s Nebraska. We’ve seen these impoverished, worn out women before. And we definitely know those selfish, unreliable cowpokes.

The same types – actually, the forebears of the characters in this novel – also appeared in 2008’s Sun Going Down, Todd’s initial offering in a planned trilogy loosely based on his own family’s hardscrabble life on the parched American prairie. Come Again No More feels less like a sequel than the same book, albeit one that is more sentimental and takes place 30 years later, during the Depression.

Sun Going Down followed twin brothers Eli and Ezra Paint and Eli’s numerous offspring. In Come Again No More, Eli’s estranged granddaughter Emaline, a pretty waitress in a one-horse town, takes centre stage. Like her late mother, Emaline has bad luck with men. She marries and tries to tame Jake, a dashing boxer. Everybody but Emaline knows the marriage is doomed.

Naturally, Emaline and Jake lose their farm. The bank leaves them with enough money to relocate to the West Coast, but gullible Jake loses that cash, too. Poor Emaline is left to suffer like a character transplanted from The Grapes of Wrath. The Paint girls, however, are a plucky lot. Emaline makes some bold choices that allow her to ride off into the sunset singing “Happy Trails.”

Todd is best known as one of Canada’s more cerebral sportswriters. His prose is muscular and precise, and soars highest here during scenes of boxing matches, bronco busting, and other manly pursuits. His dialogue is far weaker, at times becoming a veritable parody of cornpone.

Sun Going Down was a refreshing change from the usual stories of the Old West, in that it focused more on emotions than gunfights. The characters were vivid and the events believable. The same could be said for its sequel, but it is just too darn similar to the first book to shine.