In a Town Called Paradox

I wasnt looking for Marilyn Monroe when I bumped into her even though I knew she was in town filming River of No Return...So begins In A Town Called Paradox - set in Utah in the 1950s when the Big Five Hollywood studios were lured to that state by the fiery red-rock scenery that formed the perfect backdrop to the blockbuster movies they planned to film.Corin Dunbar - banished to live with her aunt Jessie an obsessively religious spinster who runs a failing cattle ranch near Paradox - hates her new life until the arrival of Hollywood turns the rural backwater into a playground for glamorous stars. Seduced by the glitz of the movies Corin finds work with the studios but after a brush with the casting couch channels her growing ambition into saving the ranch-the jewel of the Dunbar family for three generations. When Corin falls for Ark Stevenson - a charismatic stranger who was raised by missionaries in the Amazon jungle (then drawn to Paradox by his fascination with the Westerns that are filmed there) - her future seems bright. Thats not the outlook facing Yiska Begay a Navajo Indian and convicted murderer whos on the run near Paradox. These different lives unexpectedly collide when a tragic accident wrecks Corins dreams and forces her to make an agonizing decision that changes the course of her life forever.Told mainly by Corin-now a middle-aged woman still haunted by this watershed moment-In A Town Called Paradox is a compelling read that redefines the meaning of love as it asks the question: If each of us has a life story then who decides how it unfolds - and how it should end?