The Blue Yonder Inn

The Blue Yonder Inn is the story of a clash between two headstrong Texas women. Darnelle is a fortyish gun-packing loner fighting to keep her sullen teenage niece, Bonnie Blue, out of trouble. Darnelle owns and operates the Blue Yonder Inn, a pay-by-the-hour roadside motel that caters to airmen, prostitutes, and visitors to the state penitentiary. After Bonnie's low-life husband Gil beats her up, Bonnie dumps her infant son on Darnelle's doorstep and heads out for California on an epic quest to refashion her life according to Seventeen magazine. Yet, Gil's vengeance and the moral qualms of Bonnie's new friend Edie combine to shatter both Bonnie's and Darnelle's hopes for the future. Against the backdrop of Darnelle's showpiece garden, Bonnie, Darnelle, and Edie come to understand that life doesn't come from the pages of a magazine, and that family ties are forged not in blood, but by hand.

Like Larry McMurtry and Michael Dorris, Helen Campbell reaches deep into the human heart to reveal that relationships, while often painful, create the scaffolding of human dreams and suffering.