True towns where normal people still live: there are still patches of them left, but it takes a fierce sort of pride and determination to keep what's there alive. In Homecoming you have a young woman, completely under the thumb of her only living relative, her uncle. Everyday of her life is regulated to the Mansions Hotels business. More time is spent in hotels and in the air than in her own company-owned home--until she goes to Carson’s Bluff or “Harry’s Folly”, the small Northern California town that has a chunk of property the Mansions are keen to buy. Their only interest is to build a hotel resort in that area.

F. H. Mansions, however arrives very ill, exhausted, and on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Federica, whom the town was expecting as their public enemy number one, throws the town for a loop. For one, she's a woman, and two, she is so ill no one has the heart to spring one of their infamous booby traps they pull on people who try to tell the town what to do. In the days and weeks that follow, Federica, who came to close the deal on the land, receives healing she had not realized she needed. She also finds herself falling in love with the man, and a town, whom she was sent to help destroy, all in the name of economic might.

But as she falls for the town, and the town falls for her, will she find the courage to live her own life and help the town to continue its own? This Homecoming will be well received by any lover and native of Northern California towns, especially those who have cried for their loss to corporate takeovers, and greed replacing need. It is a strong metaphor between what is healthy not only for the person, but for the world around us as well and that the richness of life is not contained in ones bank account, but in one’s heart. 
 
Reviewed By Nancy Louise
© March 2007