Desert Bloom

So, I found out recently that Gregory Hinton had written a sequel to his Cathedral City, and thus did Desperate Hearts show up in my mail a few days later.

While it's mostly the same cast, the situation in Cathedral City is quite a bit changed from where we left it. Father Gene has been removed from St. Louis Church, and the new priest cares more about his new upscale parishioners than the dispossessed seniors and Mexicans that had been the backbone of the parish. Solia, of the port wine birthmark, works at the church when not babysitting Kenny and Maria's baby Concha. Maria is busy running her restaurant, although the clientele is not the same as when Nick and Kenny ran it. Ruthie still sings at Maria's, but the new clientele doesn't seem to care that much. Kenny and Nick are in Reno, still keeping secrets from each other. Pablo is back in Cathedral City after graduating from Stanford.

We also have new characters Bambi and Madonna, the mixed race lesbian couple that delivers produce; Officer Bob, the Border Patrol agent; and Sister Agnes, the nun at St. Louis who harbors more than a few secrets of her own.

The plot has a few different centers as it meanders around, what with Bambi and Madonna's involvement in smuggling a pregnant woman across the border, Pablo's romance with Bob, Ruthie's detox from anti depressants that eventually leads to her kidnapping of Concha and eventual death in a flood, and Nick and Kenny's revelations. We also finally get a bit of closure with Inez and Thomas, as Inez comes back to Cathedral City to be with her family as Thomas dies of El SIDA. We also have the odd case of Solia and her birthmark removal following it taking on the shape of the Virgin of Guadelupe.

While the first book was heavy on the pathos, this one is much darker by turns, with touches of the mystical sprinkled throughout. Indeed, while everyone does eventually get a happy ending through quirks of fate, I felt like most of that was a forced Deus ex Machinae, as none of this would likley have ended up as well in reality. Still worth reading though.