From the highly acclaimed author of Souls Raised from the Dead and Heading West, a strikingly original and powerful novel that embraces suspense, love, and the fantastic.
At the center: Luna Stone, twenty-eight, on the mend from a nervous breakdown, traveling west wit her beautiful, self-involved boyfriends. Their plan is to marry in Reno, but when the moment of decision comes, Luna takes off for the High Sierra, camping out near the spot where long ago the Donner Party starved and died.
There she has three unexpected encounters. She becomes profoundly attached to a runaway boy, Sam, and escapee from a child prostitution ring whom she has caught stealing her food. She establishes a cautious understanding with a charming shy would-be minister, in despair because he's going deaf. And she is visited by the ghost of Tamsen Donner -- and outsize, insistent presence 00 who seems to have something important to say to her about men and the nature of love.
As Luna gradually winds the boy's trust, the minister, Paul, begins to overcome Luna's resistance to making a new emotional connection, and together the three start wandering, sightseeing around Reno. Until one day Luna is minutes too late to keep young Sam from being snatched again by his exploiters. And a breathtaking chase is set in motion that will change the world in undreamed of ways for all of them.
This is Doris Betts at the top of her form. Her people are wonderfully alive. The story is richly told -- a love story that is as much about the difficulties and compromises of love as about its transforming power.