In the Midnight Room

At twenty-one, June Stein leaves the safe world of her New Jersey childhood for Las Vegas in the 1950s. She is fun-loving and rebellious. Over the next sixty years she lives boldly: she breaks with convention, risks her heart and her life, raises a child and loses one, loves more than one man, and defends more than one woman.

June's story is braided with those of three women who start out as strangers. One is a former mail order bride from the Philippines, one teaches high school music, and one is a young mother from Mexico who works as a hotel maid. Their lives are tied together by a secret of June's. Together they build a future none of them saw coming.

This is contemporary literary fiction with an ensemble of four women at its centre, set in Las Vegas and spanning decades. The tone is warm and humane rather than bleak, though the book takes in loss, tragedy and desire along the way. Small acts of kindness and moments of courage drive the plot as much as the larger events do.

The novel looks at womanhood, family ties and everyday life in present-day America. It suits readers who like a multigenerational cast and a slow, interlocking structure in which each woman's choices reach into the lives of the others.