Review by Lola R. Eagle

ORTEGO, SHEILA

The Road From La Cueva

Sunstone Press, ISBN 978-0-86534-588-1

$26.95 Amazon

WINNER 2008 NEW MEXICO BOOK AWARDS

This beautifully done novel pulls the reader along through the trials of a young mother, unhappy in her marriage yet reluctant to do anything about it. Her home is thirty miles out in an undeveloped area. She resents the inconvenience, her husband’s lack of respect for her, his obsessive controlling, and the fact that he hasn’t provided the home he promised.

Working as a lab technician in a Santa Fe hospital, she meets a male nurse who is attracted to her. She sneaks an affair into her life which goes on for some time, until her lover breaks it off because she won’t leave her husband, being afraid of a confrontation.

She then gives up her job at the hospital to avoid her estranged lover.

During this time she becomes friends with a fiercely independent Indian woman who lives alone in the same neighborhood. From this friendship she derives strength of her own and builds her independence, finally divorcing her husband and starting a new job and a new life.

After taking care of her friend through a terminal illness, she finds herself no longer afraid to face life. She decides to reconnect with her lover.

This is a well-written story with only occasional typographical errors, the most disconcerting of which was the use of hyphens in place of commas in many places which makes the reader stumble over the meaning of the phrase. However, all in all, well worth reading for its examination of a woman’s psyche and her spiritual growth.

12/08 Reviewed by Lola R. Eagle, author of From the Eye of an Eagle