A SURFING LOVE STORY
With an open heart and a willingness to forgive
You can go home again
THE AVENUE
A novel about a runaway wife, a family secret, and the chance to fix the past.
Sixty-year-old Clara Russell thought she left her beach town roots and troubled past far behind but when she’s betrayed one too many times by her husband of thirty-seven years and intent on finally solving the mystery of how her father died, she withdraws to what was once his studio, now deserted and sitting on a neglected corner of the sprawling estate of her 90-year-old estranged mother.
Hidden behind an overgrown walled garden on a rundown and economically ruined dead-end avenue in Santa Cruz, like so many others during the 2009 international banking scandal, Clara learns just how difficult mere survival is, especially so in the middle of a decaying surf-town neighborhood with characters living in abandoned cars lining the avenue of more boarded-up houses than lived-in. Everything changes when she meets a mysterious surfer with a devastating secret of his own.
The heart of the story rests in the expanse of the Monterey Bay where Clara’s father took her surfing as kid. The counterpoint is the seemingly dead expanse separating her father’s studio from her mother’s house. Her decision to return to her childhood home after so long sets off long repressed memories until secrets from the past become inescapable. Clara returns to the waves and works to restore the garden shut away for nearly three decades to feed many. Between the watery realm of the bay and the earth that grounds, supports, and gives life, Clara braves the barriers of each to follow the path of discovery. But, when an emotional tsunami hits, can she hold onto the new life she has worked so hard to create?
An intimate portrayal of a woman with a past that unlocks her future
THE AVENUE
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