Midnight Cactus

Alice Coleman, a restless London wife in a claustrophobic marriage to a workaholic British developer, takes her two small children to the Arizona desert near the Mexican border for a year away. In this unpredictable landscape, she encounters Benjamin, a kindly Mexican caretaker of an abandoned mining town; desperate immigrants crossing the border; and Henry Duval, a laconic cowboy whose charm masks dark secrets. Alice finds herself drawn to Duval even as she seeks freedom from her marriage. When Alice's husband arrives, the desert sanctuary becomes dangerous. She must decide what she is willing to sacrifice to preserve her freedom and protect Benjamin and Duval. The novel explores the tension between unrealized ambitions and family obligations through a story that combines romance with the complexities of escape and consequence.