I think Louise Walters has just broken my heart. The Road to California is a beautiful story of love, loss, friendship and family.

We meet Joanna, single mum coping on her own with her sometimes tricky teenage son, Ryan, and running a small sewing business. Joanna is sometimes tricky herself, being a bit proud and sometimes a bit too principled but ultimately she's doing her best and I admired her for it.

But even she accepts that she needs help with Ryan and contacts Lex, Ryan's dad. I loved Lex for the difference he made when he came back into Ryan and Joanna's lives. As he had left them once before I was on a knife edge. I cared about what happened to Ryan and Joanna and I didn't want Lex to hurt them again. I wanted a happy ending for these flawed yet likable people.

Louise Walters is such a lovely writer. Here she's writing about subjects she understands and puts them across in such a way that I empathised completely with all of the characters. And when something happened that I thought could have one of two outcomes, neither of which was exactly favourable, I knew that either way it would be earth shattering for the main characters and I was saying "no, no, no" to myself as I realised the turn the story was about to take.

The Road to California is a perceptive novel, looking at inner feelings and how they can affect everything you do. It's such a moving story and I do freely admit that near the end my eyes leaked. The final section was a little surprise and I thought it was a fine way to end such a entrancing book. Altogether a fabulous read. ( )