Fireside.

Wiggs, Susan (author).

Feb. 2009. 416p. MIRA, paperback, $7.99 (9780778326175). 
REVIEW. First published February 15, 2009 (Booklist).

For years, hard-living Bo Crutcher has worked diligently toward a New York Yankees pitching spot, but just when it seems likely, he learns that his son AJ needs a home after his mother is detained by the Texas INS as an undocumented alien. Kimberly van Dorn, a hotshot media-relations expert in Los Angeles, is also experiencing a dramatic life change. She has fled her abusive client-boyfriend for the safety of Avalon, New York, and her mother’s ancestral home. Having satisfactorily provided for the adult Bellamy generation in a string of popular novels, including Snowfall at Willow Lake (2008), Wiggs now directs the spotlight onto secondary characters readers have met in previous installments of her small-town contemporary-romance series, the Lakeshore Chronicles, poignantly revealing the catastrophic results of unjust immigration laws, especially on the American-born children of deported parents.

— Lynne Welch