Away to Stay

"Weary of rundown motels and long nights sleeping in her mother's truck, Olya wants nothing more than to find a home. It seems she might finally find one with Jack, her mother's cousin who lives in a tumbledown ranch in Southern California's Inland Empire. But safety is not all that it seems. Away to Stay burns with the urgency of its young narrator who bears witness to a world of desperate people flailing inside a broken system. Olya's mother Irina is a Russian âemigrâe and self-serving liar, obsessed with becoming a prima ballerina and stalking Mikhail Baryshnikov. Cousin Jack is haunted by demons from the Afghanistan war--and the oft-absent Irina. Jack turns his obsession onto his untrainable dog named Bird that he kidnapped from the Riverside Police Department. To Olya, Bird is Job on four legs"--Back cover.