Round Rock

'Round Rock' 

by Michelle Huneven.

It's a book i was sorry to finish, I missed the characters when they were no longer in my life.

Read it!

The small California town of Rito, situated in the San Bernita Valley, is the kind of place that attracts dreamers, like the early settlers who made fortunes as citrus farmers. It's also a place where people seem to wash up after life's wrecks. Take Red Ray, a successful lawyer who bought the old ranch called Round Rock in an effort to save his marriage, only to find himself abandoned by wife and child when he takes to the bottle again. Or Lewis Fletcher, the Ph.D. candidate who makes his way to Round Rock after waking up one morning in a detox center. Or Libbie Daw, living in a housetrailer on a piece of land where her architect husband planned to build their dream house, until he left her for another woman. Ray finds his own redemption by setting up and running a treatment center for alcoholics at Round Rock. The centre of the novel, he is also Lewis' salvation and Libbie's refuge. Huneven's remarkably confident first novel is strengthened by a strong sense of place and a cast of vivid characters.