The Road to Enchantment

As a young girl, Willow’s mother left their home in Washington State in a literal blaze of glory: she set the mattress of her cheating husband on fire in her driveway, roasting marshmallow peeps and hot dogs before the fire department arrived. And with that, she and her daughter set off to New Mexico, to a new life, to a world of arroyos and canyons and the Apache reservation. Willow was devastated. Her eccentric mother believed in this new life and set about starting a winery and goat ranch. But for Willow, it meant being bullied and forever labeled an outsider. Today, as a grown woman, Willow much prefers Los Angeles and her job as a studio musician. But things tend to happen in threes: her mother dies, her boyfriend dumps her, and Willow discovers she is pregnant. The DeVine Winery and Goat Ranch is all she has left, even it is in financial straits and unmanageable back taxes. There is something, though, about the call of “home.” Her best friend Darrel seems to think she belongs there and Darrel, an Apache, knows these things. Can Willow redefine what home means for her, and can she make a go of the legacy her mother left behind? Told with Kaya McLaren’s humor and heart, The Road to Enchantment is a story about discovering that the last thing you want is sometimes the one thing you need.

KAYA MCLAREN spent four summers in college working at Camp Zanika on Lake Wenatchee in Washington State, and fifteen years later returned to run the teen programs for two more. In addition to her camp experience, she's been an elementary teacher, an art teacher, an archaeologist, and a massage therapist. Although her roots are in Washington, she currently resides wherever the wind takes her.