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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN num: 9780738853512
ISBN number: 0738853518
Label: Xlibris Corporation
Manufacturer: Xlibris Corporation
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 276
Printing Date: February 13, 2001
Publishing house: Xlibris Corporation
Sale Popularity Level: 5179153
Studio: Xlibris Corporation
Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
It starts as a Martha Stewart-style fantasy. When newlywed gardening magazine editor Laura Von Baden and her husband, Thomas, purchase 40 acres of land in northwestern Colorado, Laura envisions a picturesque rural retreat; and discovering she’s pregnant only fuels her passion for creating the ideal country home—an escape from city stresses—for her family. But the dream starts to unravel when Laura and Thomas find themselves plagued with absentee landowner responsibilities as a menacing neighbor trespasses, floods their land, and swindles them out of water and mineral rights.
As the neighborly dispute degenerates into a full-blown feud, Laura begins to see an explosive, frighteningly irrational side to city-bred Thomas, who starts spending spend more and more time up on their 40 acres, even as a pregnancy complication leaves Laura bedridden in Denver, her career and marriage in jeopardy.
A rich cast of characters, including Laura’s new-age best-friend Serrine, her career-challenged brother Lester, their eccentric mother, an unusual mountain man, and a Native American high school teacher/deputy sheriff, all play warm and sometimes comic roles as the crises around Laura escalate toward an unexpected but wholly satisfying conclusion.
In ROAD SHOES, author Darla Worden addresses a large number of topics of current interest: the subdividing of the West into “vanity ranches”; the baby-boomer propelled gardening boom; survivalists; Native American rights and artifacts; and new-age ideas. Worden successfully integrates these diverse elements to create a fascinating, deep-textured—and often humorous—environment in which the story’s emotional events unfold.
“Worden has a gift for writing in general, a fresh and appealing voice, and a flair for ironic humour and social satire.”
“Road Shoes is a fun, modern, wild-western romp that also touches a need to connect. An insightful read.”
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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Road Shoes is a page-turner that you won't want to put down. Reading it took a serious toll on my slumber for two days, but it was worth the sleep deprivation. Ms. Worden has written Road Shoes with a wry sense of humor, exploring a woman's deepest yearnings and fears. Who hasn't tried to prop up a failing relationship with the hope that it will turn out all right in the end? Laura Von Baden's move from the city to "40 acres of cowpies" is a vivid, sometimes funny and often poignant metaphor for the journey that unearths her own dreams and longings. In confronting the truth about her marriage and facing her fears, she discovers true love and ultimately, her true self.
Rated by buyers -
When newly married gardening magazine editor Laura Von Baden and her financier husband Thomas purchase 40 acres of ranch land in the Colorado Rockies, she believes they've staked a claim for their future, envisioning a landscaped homestead for generations rising out of the scabby, brown fields. But a flash flood of calamaties unleashed by the legal shenanigans of unscrupulous neighbors quickly erodes her dreams; exposing the gaping flaws she'd failed to notice in the man she thought she loved.
A wryly realized tale of deception and heartbreak, Darla Worden's Road Shoes follows Laura's journey of self-discovery buoyed by a supporting cast of eccentric characers including a crystal-gazing best friend, a brother who vacillates from cowboy to New Age drummer, and a Lakota spiritualist turned cop who teaches Laura a thing or two about the enduring land around her and the nature of love itself. Laura's reverence for the environemnt deepens as the child inside her grows, propelling her toward maturity and real, grownup love--the kind that, like the land itself, can never truly be owned.
Funny and bittersweet, Road Shoes is must reading for all returning-to-nature wannabees as well as the newly betrothed. I highly recommend it.
Rated by buyers -
The idyll of escaping to the country to find happiness is nearly as old as literature itself. Rather than stultifying the senses with rural dreariness or encouraging Woody Allen bug phobias, the Greek, Romans, and Renaissance writers thought the country life stimulating and healthy. Milton's, "a happy rural seat of various view," come to mind.
But Milton, as we know, was blind.
Sometimes country life goes awry, as it does in Darla Worden's Road Shoes. Instead of marital harmony, Thomas and Laura Von Baden find that rural life rents their lives asunder. Weary of Denver's crowds and yearning to find a haven for growing flowers, Thomas and Laura purchase 40 acres of land in the Rockies. They are immediately confronted by disingenuous neighbors and the perils of verbal agreements. But these unpleasantries are small beer when compared to the state of the Von Baden's marriage, which seems to sink with every step of altitude they gain. Thomas, bit by bit, looses his grip on sanity. Laura seeks succor outside her marriage and becomes pregnant, father unknown.
There aren't many books about westerners escaping to the mountains. Often rural escape books are about easterners finding solace in places like Colorado. So Worden is on relatively new ground here. She does her job well, wielding a skillful and knowledgeable pen about how the rural west works. She also documents, with painful and moving detail, what it is like to have a partner lose their grip on reality and, as a result, have a union dissolve. She writes beautiful about flowers and how life folds and unfolds with their seasons. There a some really lovely passages on foliage and flowers in the book. "Road Shoes" is well worth the read.
Rated by buyers -
Road Shoes hooked me from the beginning. I like the way she introduces her chapters and the twists and turns of the plot. In this book, not everything is what it seems. Worden sets up the scenes well and truly develops her characters. Whether you love them or hate them (and trust me, some will engender strong emotions), you want to know what happens to them all. Her descriptions of Steamboat Springs, CO, are poetic in their beauty and paint a vivid picture of the landscape. I wasn't sure what to expect from Road Shoes but finished it with a satisfied tear in my eye. It's an impressive very first novel. I look forward to her subsequent work!
Rated by buyers -
Road Shoes hooked me from the beginning. I like the way she introduces her chapters and the twists and turns of the plot. In this book, not everything is what it seems. Worden sets up the scenes well and truly develops her vivid characters. Whether you love them or hate them (and trust me, some will engender strong emotions), you want to know what happens to them all. Her descriptions of Steamboat Springs, CO, are poetic in their beauty and paint a vivid picture of the landscape. I wasn't sure what to expect from Road Shoes but finished it with a satisfied tear in my eye. It's an impressive very first novel. I look forward to her subsequent work!
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