Midnight Cactus

Book excerpt: 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.