For readers of yesteryear, and those of tomorrow: a coming-of-age mystery wound around a sweeping family saga.
Joann Singer has survived one near miss too many. But when her husband finally raises a hand for real, it's her five-year-old daughter who stops him: Lena hurls the nearest thing she can find, a book, hard enough to buy them the door. They don't look back.
Joann rebuilds a life one shift at a time at Motel Milagro, until she can afford a unit at the Sunland Motorcourt, free of Bill Dean for good. Lena grows up there, starting a lending library with her new best friend, Moira, and falling for the one boy her mother has already forbidden: Moira's older brother, Kiefer.
Then, Joann moves them again, into another man's house. Crushed to lose the only place she ever really called home, Lena decides she's done. Done inheriting other people's houses, and done with Tucson and its dime-store cowboys who keep sweeping Joann off her feet. So Lena does the only thing her mother ever taught her to do. She runs, too.
To a little mountain town called Desperate Pines, and a church there which might just take her in.
Kingsolver meets Hannah in this southwestern epic for the clean women's fiction set. Rich prose and clever writing make the author of The Monday House one to watch.
Desperate Pines is best enjoyed in the following order:
Book One: The Sunday House
Book Two: The Monday House
Book Three: Surely, you see where this is going.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Joann Singer has survived one near miss too many. But when her husband finally raises a hand for real, it's her five-year-old daughter who stops him: Lena hurls the nearest thing she can find, a book, hard enough to buy them the door. They don't look back.
Joann rebuilds a life one shift at a time at Motel Milagro, until she can afford a unit at the Sunland Motorcourt, free of Bill Dean for good. Lena grows up there, starting a lending library with her new best friend, Moira, and falling for the one boy her mother has already forbidden: Moira's older brother, Kiefer.
Then, Joann moves them again, into another man's house. Crushed to lose the only place she ever really called home, Lena decides she's done. Done inheriting other people's houses, and done with Tucson and its dime-store cowboys who keep sweeping Joann off her feet. So Lena does the only thing her mother ever taught her to do. She runs, too.
To a little mountain town called Desperate Pines, and a church there which might just take her in.
Kingsolver meets Hannah in this southwestern epic for the clean women's fiction set. Rich prose and clever writing make the author of The Monday House one to watch.
Desperate Pines is best enjoyed in the following order:
Book One: The Sunday House
Book Two: The Monday House
Book Three: Surely, you see where this is going.
Genre: Literary Fiction