<DIV>The best-selling author of <I>Hunting Unicorns</I> returns with a stirring and suspenseful tale of love and the quest for freedom, vividly set in the wild lands between Arizona and the Mexican border. On the run from her claustrophobic marriage in London, Alice Coleman moves her two small children to the American desert hoping to find the solitude she craves but hadn't thought possible. But the vast and unruly southwest has room for the dreams of more than one fugitive?from Benjamin, an abandoned mining town's Mexican caretaker, to the immigrants who risk their lives to cross the border, to the laconic cowboy Duval, who Alice finds herself falling for. What seemed idyllic turns deadly as Alice must decide how much she is willing to sacrifice in order to preserve not only her freedom, but Benjamin and Duvall's as well. Building to a blistering climax, <I>Midnight Cactus </I>is both a perilous love story and a compelling exploration of the tension between unrealized dreams and the pull of family.</DIV>