The Lost Coast — Steven Nightingale

There are places of sure enchantment: Nevada's Great Basin - the classic Western high desert - is one of them. It's a wilderness, with good bars in little towns far out in the long quiet valleys. In one of those bars, in the town of Eureka, in the middle of a spring day when the light runs sweet seven people meet: Cookie, a cowgirl and fry-cook; Chiara, a professor on the run; her sixteen-year-old saucy daughter Izzy; the painter, Renato. There is also Juha, a contractor strong as a horse, but blushingly shy; Muscovado, a Jamaican journalist; and Ananda, a securities attorney - blond, logical, delicious.
They meet as is inevitable. And so tasty is the whisky, so compelling the twilight, they band together for a journey to the legendary Lost Coast of northern California. Like all such trips, it is not just a moving through the gift-giving wilderness, not just a series of visits to remote settlements; it is also a journey of the soul. Delightful and entertaining, The Lost Coast is a sexy and highly literate novel that has attracted critical acclaim.