To paraphrase Leo Tolstoy, great literature grows from two stories: someone goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town. In Melinda Field’s first novel True, the character of young Cat sets events in motion–she is both on a journey and the stranger who comes to town.

Abandoned by her Mexican father, Cat has been raised by a drug-addicted mother and grown up tough in the streets of Phoenix, AZ. When her mother is taken to prison, Cat is forced to move to a small town and live with her Native American grandmother, a woman she has never met. To further complicate matters, the town is an isolated, predominantly white, ranching community in Northern California.

For Cat, this is a coming-of-age story. The brutality she encounters and the consequences will mark her life forever. But the novel True is much more.

The ensemble cast of characters, a diverse group of women brought together by their love of horses and their shared adventures in the mountains, is focused through Emma, a midwife who ultimately becomes Cat’s guardian. Each woman faces life-changing challenges, so that in True, Field reveals how we are always coming-of-age no matter where we find ourselves.

True is set in the contemporary west and Field evokes a palpable sense of place.  From the dusty heat of a Phoenix motel, redolent of curry and disinfectant–to the cider scent of an orchard, the crunch of apples underfoot—to the sharp-scented sage and dangerous shale of a mountain trail, the salt and blood of fear when a rattlesnake or mountain lion appears—True will transport readers from their easy chairs to a wild and authentic place.

For your hard copy or ebook, visit http://www.amazon.com/True-Melinda-Field/dp/097620083X