McBride's (We Are Called to Rise) second novel tells the moving, intertwined stories of four women in Las Vegas. In 1960, June and her husband, Del, run the El Capitan casino and draw crowds with talented singer Eddie Knox. June's life seems blessed until a tragedy strikes that will upend everything and force her to reconsider running the casino. Jumping forward to the 1990s, Honorata is a mail order bride from the Philippines, sold by her own uncle, who now lives a comfortable life in Las Vegas as the housewife of a wealthy man-until she wins the jackpot at El Capitan. Coral is a music teacher in a Las Vegas school and stops by the casino frequently, drawn by the memories of her father, who was Del's best friend. Meeting up with her siblings, past events are revealed and considered in a new light, and Coral discovers how to move beyond old hang-ups. In the last section, taking place in 2010, Engracia works at the now-decrepit El Capitan as a housekeeper to support her young son until her heart is broken by an unexpected loss. In addition to being linked by El Capitan, this diverse group of complex women intersect in surprising ways as the years pass. Las Vegas itself is a character in this immersive novel that effectively exhibits the changes to the city throughout the decades. This is a tale of love, loss, and the unexpected, unheralded ways that lives meet around blackjack and roulette tables. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

If McBride (We Are Called to Rise, 2014) is trying to prove what one of her characters declares that if you change one life, you change the world she succeeds magnificently. The stories of four strong women, whose lives are for the most part only tangentially connected via a club in a second-rate Vegas casino, resonate with this notion. At the awakening of the Las Vegas allure in the 1950s, Del and June Dibb open a small casino, the El Capitan, with mysterious funding from a definitely shifty source. In the vernacular of the time, he's a white Las Vegas native and she's a Jewish East Coast transplant. Together, they luck out by engaging Eddie Knox, a charismatic black singer whose shows in the casino's Midnight Room are largely responsible for the casino's initial success. The kitschy venue is central to June's life and her choices that subsequently affect the lives of the book's three other women. McBride powerfully addresses an important theme, namely, how much a personal choice can impact others and even alter history.--Chavez, Donna Copyright 2017 Booklist