Las Arenas

About the Book

They are bound together by geography but opposed to each other in every way. Their battles are threefold: within each community, between each other and together versus outsiders and the onslaughts of nature. Even a fictional community has to have some roots, so the towns have been located where there are no towns at a mythical beach somewhere between the cities of Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz, probably the one place where geology and geography would never let it happen. The people of Rockport and Willow Glen and their problems are unique to an imagined place, but not atypical. The World Series Earthquake is a fitting prelude to battles witnessed by attorney Angela Adams and architect Vince Correlli from within the seaside community of Las Arenas. The two learn to live with the sometimes odd and quirky actions of their neighbors. They can’t escape the fact, however, that Las Arenas is placed by nature between the towns of Rockport and Willow Glen that have a century-old history of conflicts. The fictional towns might exist anywhere along the California coast, but their problems are typical of those in similar communities that grew during the real-estate boom years of the Golden State.

About the Author

Sherwood Stockwell backs his writing with 40 years as an architect and planner throughout the western states. Those years provide a framework for building into a novel the language, laws and laughs of design, construction and real estate development.