The Road to Enchantment by Kaya McLaren
Title: The Road to Enchantment
Author: Kaya McLaren
Publication: January 31st, 2017
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Read: December 26th, 2016
Summary:
As a young girl, Willow watched her mother leave their home in Washington State in a literal blaze of glory: she set the mattress of her cheating husband on fire in her driveway, roasting marshmallow peeps and hot dogs before the fire department arrived. And with that, she and Willow set off to New Mexico, to a new life, to a world of arroyos and canyons bordering an Apache reservation. Willow was devastated. Her eccentric mother believed in this new life and set about starting a winery and goat ranch. But for Willow, it meant initially being bullied and feeling like an outsider. Today, as a grown woman, Willow much prefers Los Angeles and her job as a studio musician. But things tend to happen in threes: her mother dies, her boyfriend dumps her, and Willow discovers she is pregnant. The DeVine Winery and Goat Ranch is all she has left, even if it is in financial straits and unmanageable back taxes. There is something, though, about the call of “home.” She's surprised to find that her Apache best friend Darrel along with the rest of the community seems to think she belongs far more than she ever thought she did. Can Willow redefine what home means for her, and can she make a go of the legacy her mother left behind? Told with Kaya McLaren’s humor and heart, The Road to Enchantment is a story about discovering that the last thing you want is sometimes the one thing you need. “This is a potent coming of true age novel. One that gently leads us to leave behind all we imagined as lost, encourages us to embrace what adventure of the simple day lies ahead. The Road to Enchantment carries us into that place beyond the dark hour where the power of story reigns, truth will not be denied, and all the magic of this life will be remembered.” –River Jordan
My Review:
Lou's mind stars: ✭✭✭
It is a book which took a long time to grow in me but I am glad I did not give up on it when I wanted to because in the end, it was a beautiful story.
Willow is not the usual heroine we encounter in books, nor that is the setting but it was refreshing. We can see that her relationship with her family was not an easy one and I think a lot of people who come from a fractured family can relate to her story. She is faced with some difficult choices and until the end, she is in doubt of what she should do. Her heart is in contradiction with her mind but I think she grew up - or better said, matured - in choosing the path she did in the end.
*book received from the author via Netgalley for an honest review*
