Midnight Cactus

By Bella Pollen

Subjects: Single-parent families, Separated women, Fiction, general, Fiction, British

Description: "On the run from her claustrophobic marriage in London, Alice Coleman moves her two small children to the Arizona desert with the intention of renovating an abandoned mining town on the Mexican border - and there escapes to a solitude she hadn't thought possible." "But the mythic south-west is a place grand enough to swallow the dreams of all kinds of fugitives ... In the dusty, alien atmosphere, where immigrants in search of work risk their lives to cross the border and local landowners play fair or foul to stop them, Alice is uncertain whom to trust." "Here, on the cusp of the haves and have-nots, it seems that everyone - from Benjamin, the town's Mexican caretaker to the laconic cowboy Duval - has something to hide." "As winter moves to scorching summer, what seemed idyllic turns deadly, as Alice is drawn deeper into an obsessive quest for revenge, until finally she must decide how far she is willing to go to hang on to her freedom and what exactly she will have to sacrifice." "A fierce and compelling love story, Midnight Cactus explores the territory between unrealized dreams and the pull of family. In a blistering climax Alice discovers it is only by risking everything that you learn what is really worth living for."--Jacket.