Lost Canyon

June 29, 2015
When four city-bred Los Angeles yuppies go backpacking in the rugged wilderness of California’s Sierra Nevada mountains, their trip turns out to be a nightmare of bad decisions and even worse luck. Revoyr’s (Wingshooters) novel is a suspenseful adventure story that explores how people react to danger, uncertainty, fear, and life-or-death choices. Tracy, an aggressive fitness trainer and risk-taking hiking guide, organizes the easy 30-mile hike with three of her clients (who don’t know one another). There is Gwen, a counselor of at-risk kids in South L.A.; Oscar, a disgruntled real estate salesman with judgment issues; and Todd, a burned-out lawyer in an unhappy marriage. Tracy is the expert—the others are novices, and their naïve bravado and macho bluster has grave consequences. A forestry glitch changes their hiking route, forcing them to a remote, little-used trail to Lost Canyon. The trek is more arduous than expected and becomes more and more dangerous, culminating in a fateful decision and desperate measures. This is an exciting, page-turning adventure story that reveals how good people can do things totally contrary to their own moral code, and the conclusion will both surprise and satisfy.

June 15, 2015
Revoyr (Wingshooters, 2011, etc.) sends four Angelenos mired in First World angst to confront the wilds of California's Sierra Nevada range. A more disparate group of left coastals would be hard to assemble. Grieving and near burnout after a promising client's suicide, Gwen counsels troubled Watts youth. Latin-American realtor Oscar rode the housing bubble into BMW-Rolex country and then down to near-bankruptcy. Todd's a Century City attorney, a farm boy-turned-star athlete who married old money. Tracy, their trainer and trek organizer, is an intense woman fascinated by her Japanese-American grandfather's tales of Sierra escapes from Manzanar's internment camp. Weaving in character back stories, Revoyr travels LA's patchwork neighborhoods-delineating gangs and money, color and prejudice-and nicely sketches "the grand, untamed Sierra," all isolated peaks and frigid waters. While the reluctant partners trust neither their own abilities nor each other's competence, Tracy, "kicked up into a weird, uncomfortable gear," urges them to tackle another trail after officials report fires on their planned route. An old ranger suggests an isolated, near-forgotten trail beyond Owens Valley. As they push past their perceived physical limits, Tracy takes a wrong turn, and the quartet stumbles onto a high-country cartel-run marijuana farm. They're taken prisoner and forced to make hard choices-to cling to civilized morality or to make a brutal but practical decision. Injured, without food, the four forge across wilderness and over a pass two miles up, "the place where storms are made," seeking help, all the while pursued by armed killers. Like Deliverance, a tense and sometimes-violent morality tale formed in the crucible of physical duress.

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November 1, 2015

Attorney Todd Harris, real estate agent Oscar Barajas, and Gwen Foster, a black woman overburdened by a job working with at-risk youth, are brought together by their personal trainer, Tracy Cole, for an adventuresome hike in the Sierra Nevada. Tracy is remarkably blase when asked whether they'll encounter danger, which they certainly do: they find themselves caught between white supremacists and Mexican drug runners in the wilderness, which certainly pulls together this disparate group. What makes this latest from Revoyr (The Age of Dreaming) more than a suspenseful tale of survival and personal growth is the slowly worked out differences of race and class, well articulated throughout. VERDICT An absorbing read with good social context.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from July 1, 2015
Four Los Angelenos carefully plan a four-day camping excursion in the Sierra Nevada. Tracy, a super-fit, covertly reckless trainer with a Japanese mother and a mountain-man father is the instigator. Each of the three clients who join her is at an impasse. Gwen, an African American who works for an organization that assists low-income kids (as does the author), is deeply discouraged. Oscar, a Latino real-estate agent, is suffering financial reversals. Todd, a white corporate attorney, is oppressed by work and marriage. Each hopes that the rigors of the hike will be rejuvenating. But weirdly irresponsible advice from a ranger sets them on course for a desperate fight for survival, a classic set-up Revoyr (Wingshooters, 2011), an edgy and spellbinding writer with an uncanny gift for aligning human struggles with nature's glory and perils, infuses with electrifying revelations. The dangers the group faces are legion, from scorching sun to treacherous terrain, injury, bears, and men with guns. Revoyr expertly tracks surges of fear and determination as Gwen, Oscar, and Todd take turns narrating and draw on previously untapped reserves of strength and courage. With ravishing descriptions of the magnificent landscape, unrelenting suspense, incisive psychology, and shrewd perspectives on matters of race and gender, Revoyr has created a gripping tale of unintended adventure and profound transformation.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)