Olivia is thirty-two & living back home with her mother in Caprock, small-town Texas. Her therapist is a girl she went to high school with; her promising career in journalism has dwindled to nothing, & she spends her days hawking jewellery in a Mall following a favour from a friend. Life is back on an even-keel after her descent into drug abuse, but it`s a far cry from the one she imagined.. . Then, under pressure to take up a hobby, she decides to try urban exploration. Soon she`s poking through derelict homes, churches & schools across North Texas. But Olivia knows her therapist would disapprove. What began as a harmless distraction soon becomes a lucrative business as she collects & sells antique fittings & fixtures online. Her new-found freedom starts to spiral out of control. Victimless trespass is fast evolving into criminal behaviour, & the path her rehabilitation is taking leads Olivia to question her own moral code. She`s not supposed to withhold information from her therapist
- yet she does. Nor is she supposed to be stashing money in a secret account when she owes so much to so many
- & although she`s supposedly prohibited from communicating with people from her past, old friends keep showing up, making demands & threats. To add to it all, her baby sister has turned up pregnant, the question of their absent fathers has once more been unearthed, & her prescribed medication is inducing an unnatural detachment that makes her feel as though she`s not present in her own life. Tackling difficult subjects with a warmth & humour, & creating an unforgettable protagonist, Jen Waldo brings an electrifying tone to fiction
- she is an astonishing new American voice who will stop you in her tracks.