Road Shoes

About the Book

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; the more subtle, verbal forms of domestic violence; career woman pregnancy; “Earthships” (self-sufficient dwellings of the type actor/environmentalist Dennis Weaver built in Colorado); male bonding and “drumming”; and various alternative health practices 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 humor and social satire.

About the Author

Darla Worden writes about the West for a number of publications including Mountain Living, Log & Timber Style, and Log Home Living. After a ten year career in publishing—working as magazine publisher, editor, columnist and publicist--she moved to a 100-year-old log cabin near her hometown in Wyoming to finish Road Shoes, and begin her second novel, One Real Cowboy. She lives with her daughter, Anna and dog Edward.