Customer Reviews

All Roads Lead Me Back to You

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Nice to read a book so specifically set in Walla Walla and environs. It takes place on a ranch outside Waitsburg and contains a lot of ranch stuff. (For example, I had to ask a couple of people what a flake of hay was.)

The story is good, about a Mexican vaquero who is saved from freezing to death by a female rancher. Until I read the interview with the author at the end of the book, I didn't realize how much humor I had missed because I don't know Spanish.

A friend tells me that a book club in Waitsburg is upset about the book because the author doesn't like the Waitsburg school system. That passed over my head, but certainly the author can hold any opinion she likes.

Maybe I'll try to read this again when I know more Spanish. Oh, and the love story is satisfying.

The author stopped me time and again with her poetic ability to capture a mood or place or human condition with complete clarity and heartful understanding. Throughout its pages it seemed I was living an alternate life as a fulfilled cattle rancher in a beloved place. I hadn`t realized my prejudices re:illegal immigrants and I feel broadened as well as nourished by experiencing this excellent book.

All Roads Lead Me Back to You is the best novel I've read in a very long time. I've never read anything like it before, yet, it's a very straight forward love story. Alice, the lead, is the kind of woman I'd want to have as a best friend. She's strong and loyal yet warm and funny. The love between Alice and Domingo is so tangible and real, I literally cheered and damn near cried when they finally came together. Foster is a master who has created a story that is light and heavy at the same time. How? HOW?! You'll feel as though you've been part of a family and actually miss them when you turn the last page. A keeper and a book I'll be recommending with my dying breath if necessary. Yes! I love it that much. Read it. Just read it.

Plot:

Alice is a rancher in Washington State, all alone, except for her charming family who's as awesome as she is. Domingo Roque is an undocumented worker who falls of his horse while running from immigration police and Alice rescues him. She takes him in, patches him up, and finds he's not a bad ranch hand. They navigate cultural and gender differences in Spanglish and manage to become friends. He helps her save the ranch and fend off the creepy co-owner determined to sell his half of the ranch to pay off his gambling debts. And they eventually fall in love, head over heels. So beautiful, the word almost doesn't do it justice. Okay, I'm getting sappy. Over and out.

I enjoyed this book a lot. It is miles above the usual romance. The author is obviously very familiar with ranching and the care of horses.

In Washington State by the foothills of the Blue Mountains, the blizzard is nasty so Alice Anderson plans to stay inside on her ranch Standfast. That is until she sees a saddled quarter horse wandering aimlessly in the snow. She knows whomever was riding it is in trouble from exposure to the icy weather. Reluctantly after placing the horse in a barn, Alice searches for the missing rider although she fears she will bring home a frozen corpse. She finds him alive so Alice manages to get Domingo Roque on her sled and to the safety of her ranch.

Domingo proves to be an expert vaquero as he helps Alice work her ranch. However, he is also an illegal with the authorities seeking to return him to Mexico. As Alice and Domingo work together respect and friendship grows between the padrona and the vaquero; love soon follows. However Immigration is closing in on him and vile part owner Jerry Graeme makes demands of Alice or else the ICE will bring a colder reception than the blizzard did.

This is a fabulous contemporary romance that uses ranching to bring alive the impact on people of the immigration policy, which in its current manner is like the war on drugs: a failure. Fascinatingly Domingo at first struggles with working for a female, as women are not typically heads of ranches in Mexico or in the states. The story line is fast-paced from the onset as the reader anticipates the ranching couple to fall in love, but like each of them also expects it is just a matter of time before he is deported. Alice's antagonist is a unique villain while Domingo's foe will remind the audience of Javert from Les Miserables. ALL ROADS LEAD ME BACK TO YOU is a super modern day romance.

Harriet Klausner

hand who she saves, nurses back to health, employs and, eventually, loves.

All Roads Lead Me Back to You is the story of Alice Abersand, a divorced woman who single-handedly runs a ranch in northern Washington state. One blustery winter day, she rescues a stray horse and, later, its owner, near death due to hypothermia. Over a period of a few weeks, the two get to know each other, using broken Spanish and English, as she nurses him back to health. After realizing what an asset he is to the ranch, she offers him a job as a ranch hand, in spite of the fact that he is an alambrista, a Mexican illegal immigrant. Many misunderstandings later, the turbulent tide turns and they fall in love.

Beyond a bit of pro-illegal immigration propaganda, some stuff about horses, and the ever-transforming employer/employee relationship, there isn't much to the story, and, unfortunately, the decent writing just can't make up for its plodding plot. Better: Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand, The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter and Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.