Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Feb 2010
320 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
Vibrant, sexy, and quite possibly crazy, Bernice is determined to reclaim the child she gave up for adoption five years ago. She convinces her boyfriend, Landis, to help carry out her plan, but once the abduction is accomplished, Bernice—whose own mother was given to manic episodes and strange behavior—is plagued with doubts. Will Landis stay with her, given her volatile personality and his own drifter past? Will she and Landis both end up in jail for this crime? And, perhaps most importantly, will she fail at being a mother? Dovetailed with this is the story of the conservative Christian adoptive parents, Tessa and David, and the effect the kidnapping has on their troubled marriage. As Bernice and Landis journey across America, from Colorado Springs to Tucson to Baltimore, Bernice must confront her past and the secrets she has kept.
"Starred Review. [A] remarkably taut narrative and a rousing testament to humanity's capacity for resilience." - Publishers Weekly
"You won't trust a person in this book but it’s hard to look away. People
may be feckless and unreliable in the big ways, but their longing for
children drives them without relent. Hot Springs is a road trip layered
with desire and mistake and the impossibility of keeping a secret from
rising through the years." - Ron Carlson, author of The Signal
"In Hot Springs, his rollicking new novel, Geoffrey Becker has assembled a delicate collage of damaged souls...Becker gives them to us with such earnest and empathetic insight that he makes us root for even the most ungracious among them."—Rachel Rosenblit, Elle
"As the plot unfolds, readers are inexorably drawn into the narrative and are compelled to keep reading to learn the ultimate outcome...Becker demonstrates great skill in depicting distasteful characters whose unhappy experiences are so morbidly fascinating and so bloated with perplexing uncertainty as to provide their own uniquely tainted attraction." - Morton I. Teicher, ForeWord Magazine
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