Junction, Utah

2014 WILLA AWARD WINNER, Original Softcover Fiction

"A fresh female voice and a bold take on environmental awareness--great read!" -- Women Writing the West

". . . an adventure saga, a meditation on earth and water, a novel of pain and injury and the search for healing . . ." -- Lillian Howan, author of The Charm Buyers

". . . beautiful language . . . deeply important story . . . gripping plot. This tale of two worlds meeting and clashing is timely on so many fronts: environmental, political, and personal." -- Jordan Rosenfeld, author of Make A Scene and How to Write a Page Turner

River guide Madeline Kruse wishes she could save the world—or at least her family. With her father MIA in southeast Asia and her ill mother growing weaker searching for him, Maddie escapes into her work. This time she runs to the deep canyons of Utah, where new dramas are unfolding: oil drilling encroaching on wild rivers and threatening water on ranches and farms—everyone's lifeblood. From farmer Chris Sorensen in the town of Junction, Maddie learns how dangerous the growing risks are to the land and water. She differs in almost every way from Chris, though both their families are spinning apart. Can she find their common ground in time to save the endangered people and places she loves?

This debut novel about everything at stake in a forgotten corner of the West "keeps so many dazzling balls in the air: war, love, activism, wilderness--and always, always, the most dazzling ball of all--Lawton's dazzling descriptions of nature." -- Jill Koenigsdorg, author of Phoebe and the Ghost of Chagall