CHASING DESTINY

L.A. free spirit’s life takes a dangerous turn when she discovers she is pregnant—just as her lover decides to go back to his wife.

Part-time bartender, aspiring singer and celebrated biker babe Billie (aka, Ducati, after the Italian motorcycle) is understandably crushed when Keith tells her, at Starbucks no less, that he is back with his estranged wife Carmen, a controlling harpy who has long been blackmailing him emotionally. Even after convincing him to revoke their impending divorce, so that they might once again live as a family with their teenaged daughter Destiny, Carmen is unsatisfied. Winning back the weak-willed Keith is not enough for the hypocritical lawyer, who had a lover of her own. She knows that Keith still loves Billie, so she is determined to make sure the other woman stays out of Keith’s life—by any means necessary. Meanwhile, Carmen’s baby-faced daughter is struggling with her own strong emotions. With a habit of sneaking out of her room after dark, Destiny uses a big fight with her mother as a pretext for hooking up with a group of slightly older kids she meets on the street. What happens that night is a gritty descent into a shocking teen underworld of violence, drugs and amateur porn. When Destiny does not come home, it is Billie who finds the traumatized runaway, and drags her back to her parents, if only temporarily. After that, Billie finds herself menaced by somebody bent on harming her and her unborn child, while Destiny goes off on a harrowing mission of revenge. Dickey’s latest (Genevieve, 2005, etc.) delves into dark territory, with mixed results. While Billie is the kind of strong, sexy, heroine that Dickey’s readers have come to love, it is hard to believe that a bright girl like Destiny—even with her family falling apart—could sink so far, so fast.

A violent, sometimes farfetched look at the desperate lengths people will go to protect the things that matter most to them.