The Odor of Orchids

When is a love story not a romance?

When the lives of strangers collide, as they do on a steam-hot August weekend.

Don Burbage, the good-looking sheriff deeply in love with his wife Peggy, wrestles with what commitment means as he works out a bloody event that happened in cabin six at the Buena Vista Motel.

Lyla, young, trapped in her youth and body, has to face what her youth and body have wrought upon her.

And enter the stranger, a photojournalist passing through in his big blue Pontiac convertible. He has just left the carnival of a Republican convention, heading to the same unrealities of the Democratic, when he stops for a walk in the woods.

He does not come out of them the same.

None of them do.
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This is a character-driven novel that is also a thrill ride of events. As one reviewer put it:

"Charles W. Bechtel stitches together each distinctive character of 'The Odor of Orchids' like a well made signature quilt. He placed each character only as a master quilter can do to compliment the following chapters. He easily keeps us contained and spellbound in the array of his passionate players.

You literally feel this book come to life briskly, an unrelenting candid write that takes one by surprise time after time. As you hold the book, you become the characters so completely, whether you wish it or not . Soon it becomes a need: this page, then page after page, hit after hit."