Fault Lines - Hardcover

A fierce family quarrel sends Glynn running west from Atlanta to seek sanctuary with her aunt Laura, a fine actress whose promising Hollywood career is in decline. Merritt goes after her daughter -- against Pom's wishes and in the face of his anger -- and she impulsively decides to stay in California to see if the widening fissures between mother, sister and daughter can be healed. After a head-on collision with Laura's shallow, seductive Hollywood world and her betraying film director lover, the three women end up in Laura's red convertible, barreling up the wild coast from the Palm Springs Desert to the Santa Cruz Mountains outside San Francisco -- earthquake country. In a borrowed lodge among the redwoods, they finally stop to confront one another and their own demons.

When all the fault lines converge and erupt -- those of the heart and those buried deep beneath the mountain lodge -- each woman must seek within herself the bedrock core of strength and courage that will save and change her life. With a wrenching, deeply moving climax and the masterfully drawn characters that are a sparkling hallmark of Anne Rivers Siddons' rich storytelling powers, Fault Lines is a swift and remarkable novel.

Merritt Fowler is a natural caretaker who has spent most of her life attending to the emotional needs of those closest to her: her beautiful, erratic younger sister, Laura; her self-sacrificing physician husband, Pom; and now Pom's destructive, Alzheimer's-afflicted mother. Exhausted and confused by the burdens she's taken on, Merritt faces a new crisis when a fierce family quarrel makes her fragile sixteen-year-old daughter, Glynn, flee their Atlanta home to seek sanctuary in California with Aunt Laura, a Hollywood actress whose career is in decline. Following Glynn west and deciding to stay there—against her irate husband's wishes—Merritt hopes to heal the ever-widening fissures between mother and daughter, sister and sister. And on an impulsive trip up the coast into the Santa Cruz Mountains—earthquake country—the three women will have to confront their separate demons in order to save and change their lives.