Sheila Williams, On the Right Side of a Dream

Sheila Williams, On the Right Side of a Dream - In Columbus, Ohio, disgusted with her three adult children, fortyish Juanita Louis ran away from her family and gave up her job as a nursing assistant. She got off the bus in Paper Moon, Montana where she became a cook at Jess Gardiner's diner and soon Jess became her boyfriend (see DANCING ON THE EDGE OF THE ROOF).

After a year in Big Sky Country enjoying her new life and lover and in spite of family pressure to return home, Juanita joins a local friend Peaches on a tour of the southwest. In Los Angeles, she temporarily becomes a chef, no longer a cook, at fancy Yancey's restaurant before continuing to Arizona to run a New Age B&B. She learns that her beloved elderly friend Millie Tilson died, bequeathing her Paper Moon B&B to Juanita. Heading home to Montana, a grieving Juanita plans to make the B&B the best in the state while deciding what to do with the kind Jess, a gentle man so opposite her abusive ex spouse.

This sequel stars one of the most realistic protagonists in recent years. Juanita appears quite human as she continues her lust for life touring the southwest. Fans from the first tale will mourn the death of feisty, independent Millie almost as much as Juanita misses the fiery senior. Sheila Williams is a terrific author of the contemporary scene with real women walking away from untenable situations, often abuse, her latest is worth reading as her tales touch the soul of the audience through a finely developed, eccentric cast, especially the likable star who shows there is life to live to the fullest even following dark moments.

One World, Apr 2005, $12.95, 240 pp.

ISBN: 0345464753

Harriet Klausner