Midnight Cactus
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
To the south lies Mexico. To the north you can see the flat plains and snow tipped peaks of the Patagonia Mountains . . . and in between is a strange and wild landscape representing a freedom so great that for a long moment, I find it hard to breathe.
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 finds an escape and solitude she hadn’t thought possible.
But in the dusty, alien atmosphere, where it seems that everyone – from Benjàmin, the town’s Mexican caretaker to the laconic cowboy, Duval – has something to hide, Alice is uncertain whom to trust.
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 cling on to her freedom and what exactly she will have to sacrifice.
Fierce and compelling, 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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Restless and unfulfilled, Alice Coleman jumps at the chance to spend a year away from London and her officious, workaholic developer husband, Robert. Accompanied only by her young children, Jack and Emmy, Alice arrives in Temerosa, Ariz., a ghost town her husband bought, to oversee the renovation of the decrepit property into a resort. Unprepared for life in the remote desert community, Alice finds herself immersed in a harsh climate filled with deadly wildlife, illegal immigrants, immigrant traffickers and vigilante border guards. The construction crew working on her expansive property, she suspects, are illegals, as is the maid she hires in a fit of "wretched middle class guilt." Meanwhile, Alice is drawn into a flirtation with handsome local crew leader Henry Duval, whose rugged charm covers his own dark secrets. Robert joins the family in Temerosa and gets sucked into a murder investigation involving Henry, and things get dire. Pollen (Hunting Unicorns) creates a scorching landscape and a large, finely drawn cast, and her portrayal of the pressure-cooker atmosphere along the border is notable for its lack of preachiness. The ongoing immigration debate can't hurt sales potential.
