cover image One More Stop

One More Stop

Lois Walden, Bliss (Dufour, dist.), $16.95 trade paper (254p) ISBN 978-1-906413-61-3

A young woman confused about her life finds clarity in songwriter and producer Walden's ho-hum debut. Loli Greene is trying to sort out her feelings for her on-off girlfriend; is haunted by memories of her mother, who committed suicide nearly 20 years ago; and is fighting mental illness of her own. When a struggling theater company offers her the opportunity to teach in schools across the Midwest, she leaves New York City for a life of cheap motels and rental cars, and eventually lands in Beatrice, Neb., where she falls for the beautiful but damaged Maggie Malone. As Loli helps Maggie's daughter, Molly, discover her creative talents, Loli and Maggie's friendship evolves into a romance that pushes Loli toward finding her own peace. It hits all the proper self-discovery buttons, but the pedestrian storytelling—slow pace hobbled by endless reflection; disjointed narration; hokey premise of having Loli's dead mother speak to her in nursery rhymes—does little to distinguish this from the herd of novels about weathering the vicissitudes of life. (Jan.)