Your Oasis on Flame Lake

Lorna Landvik hypnotizes readers, telling stories with quiet power, brilliant wit, and amazing resonance. USA Today praised her novel, Patty Jane's House of Curl, as "fun and funny, spiked with tragedy and sad times." Now, in Your Oasis on Flame Lake, she continues to create real, resilient people we come to know and love.

All you have to do is see a fiery sunset reflecting on the water to figure out how Flame Lake got its name. The small Minnesota town onshore is home to a close-knit group of old friends who discover their comfortable lives taking some unforeseen turns.

Best friends fast approaching forty, Devera and BiDi (short for Beverly Diane) were recently voted "Least Changed" at their twentieth high school reunion. Once overjoyed, Devera now finds the label insulting. Oh, she loves her husband and still believes being a wife and mother is the main entree on life's plate. She just longs for the more exotic side dishes.

BiDi is adored by her second husband Sergio but her only passions are her perfect household and her perfect body. These priorities sadden her daughter, Francine, a stocky fourteen-year-old and the only girl on the high school hockey team. Francine feels closer to her stepdad, a spirited, supportive soul who loves her right back. BiDi can't figure it out. Nor can she pinpoint the reason why her own sex drive is stuck in neutral, despite a thin and gorgeous chassis.

Then there's Devera's husband, Dick Lindstrom, an ace car and appliance salesman with cabaret in his heart. He dreams of opening a night club in his basement. Nothing fancy. Just a BYOB joint to hang out in, sing, dance, tell jokes, and be yourself. The name? Your Oasis at Flame Lake. And it arrives not a moment too soon. For a violent, unexpected crisis will throw both families into chaos--and force them to take stock of their lives.

A wonderful, heartfelt novel of feeling, loving, and forgiving, Your Oasis at Flame Lake proves that Lorna Landvik is a writer who has arrived.