Midnight Cactus

October 2, 2006
Restless and unfulfilled, Alice Coleman jumps at the chance to spend a year away from London and her officious, workaholic developer husband, Robert. Accompanied only by her young children, Jack and Emmy, Alice arrives in Temerosa, Ariz., a ghost town her husband bought, to oversee the renovation of the decrepit property into a resort. Unprepared for life in the remote desert community, Alice finds herself immersed in a harsh climate filled with deadly wildlife, illegal immigrants, immigrant traffickers and vigilante border guards. The construction crew working on her expansive property, she suspects, are illegals, as is the maid she hires in a fit of "wretched middle class guilt." Meanwhile, Alice is drawn into a flirtation with handsome local crew leader Henry Duval, whose rugged charm covers his own dark secrets. Robert joins the family in Temerosa and gets sucked into a murder investigation involving Henry, and things get dire. Pollen (Hunting Unicorns
) creates a scorching landscape and a large, finely drawn cast, and her portrayal of the pressure-cooker atmosphere along the border is notable for its lack of preachiness. The ongoing immigration debate can't hurt sales potential.

October 15, 2006
Alice Coleman, looking to escape her unhappy marriage to a brash British businessman, uproots her kids and flees to Temerosa, Arizona, the site of one of her husband's failed business schemes. She decides to reactivate his project to turn the bleak mining town into a resort with the help of kindly Mexican caretaker Benjamin, who recommends hiring reticent cowboy Duval as the contractor. The arid Southwest is so different from her urban existence in London that Alice and her children must adjust not only to the deceptively dangerous desert climate but also to the cowboy culture and the border politics. Soon Alice finds herself drawn to Duval and the tragic secret that has led him to his clandestine work helping impoverished immigrants desperate to cross the border and often preyed upon by both corrupt guides and American land barons. Best known for the romantic comedy " Hunting Unicorns "(2004), Pollen tells a darker story here but also deftly mixes in comical dialogue from the Coleman kids, a beautifully evoked desert setting, and an intriguing romance.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)