Winter has come to Highway 117, a remote road through the Utah desert trafficked only by oddballs, fugitives, and those looking to escape the world. So when local truck driver Ben Jones finds an abandoned, mute Hispanic child at a lonely gas station along his route, far from any semblance of proper civilization, he knows something has gone terribly awry. With the help of his eccentric neighbors, Ben sets out to help the kid and learn the truth. In the process he makes new friends and loses old ones, finds himself in mortal danger, and uncovers buried secrets far more painful than he could have imagined. @goodreads
When I saw this was a sequel to The Never-Open Desert Diner I quickly grabbed it up. And while it wasn't the 5 star review the first book was for me, I still loved it and revisiting some old friends.
A momentary silence was all that marked the passing of summer into winter. After living most of my almost forty years in the high desert of Utah, twenty driving a truck, I had come to the conclusion there were really only two seasons: hot and windy and cold and windy. Everything else was just a variation on the two.
Late in the evening I lay half-awake in my single bed and knew the silence meant the season had changed. I like to think maybe I know a thing or two about silence. Real silence is more than just absence of sound: it is something you feel. A few heartbeats earlier a steady wind scattered the leftover sounds from evening-a car a steady wind scattered the leftover sounds from evening-a car passing, neighbors talking from behind closed doors, somewhere a dog barking-all the usual muffled racket of nearby lives. Then there was nothing, nothing at all, as if the desert and everyone in it had vanished and left nothing behind but an indifferent starless light.
I loved coming back home to the characters from Route 117. I don't know what it is I love about this story but it just gets me. I guess the idea of people just living in a small place. Some of them coming together to help each other when they can.
This book is full of evilness and some murder. And I don't like what happened to a couple of animals and one of my favorite characters.
Ben is heading out one morning to start his haul. He's getting gas when the owner tells him there is something for him down a few lanes. Then he locks himself away in the gas station. Ben thinks it's some kind of a joke until he finds a child and a dog out in the winter cold. Of course he has to take them with him. There is a note pinned to the child's shirt asking for him to watch the child. He has no time to try to figure it out and off they go. He ends up with his neighbor's baby as well. So here he is with a child, dog and baby driving the winter roads and hoping nothing will happen to them on the treacherous roads. Sounds like an ordinary day. Not!
This ends up being a journey that no one should have to take, but there are evil people in the world and the people on Route 117 have to ban together to try to help one another. Oh, and not get killed in the process.
I enjoyed the book and the people so much. Like I said, it wasn't as good as the first one but that's okay. It was still great!
*Thank you to BloggingForBooks for a print copy of this book*
Happy Reading!
Mel ♥
GOODREADS REVIEW
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