Review
From the get go I was hooked by the author's unique style of countering fast pacing with glorious moments everyday family life. Over a period of time, six weary travellers take an urgent rest stop at a surprisingly well-run motel in the Mojave Desert. They all have problems, suicidal, addictions, paedophilia, marriage problems, but Dianne Harman’s attention to characterisation makes them all so believable and more importantly she forces the reader to live with them and care for them. I love the way the novel is non-linear as it skips deftly back and forth from the lives of the motel occupants to the motel manager Maria’s terrible childhood and eventual release from poverty. That release comes in the form of Jeffrey a genius scientist. He marries Maria, but disaster strikes their happiness. All is not lost though as the married couple retire to a rundown motel, The Blue Coyote Motel. It is here, Jeffrey sets up his secret lab where he can experiment on humans instead of the usual lab rats. All 6 occupants leave the motel invigorated and with a new lease on life. Jeffrey’s new drug, “Freedom” has been piped into each room via the air conditioning. He is confident of its success with no life-threatening side effects. Now the fun begins as the six human lab rats are slowly exposed to the drug. Their lives are altered in so many positive ways, but at what cost? And as the drug slowly wears off so their lives spiral out of control. How these people solve their problems is the mainstay of this incredible page-turner? This book is a five star mystery thriller, a heady cocktail of originality that will have the reader begging for more.
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