MacGregor West, on a quest to solve the mystery of his mother's disappearance, is seduced into the world of the eccentric Ware family of San Francisco and falls in love with a woman who may hold the key to his past. "A couple of years ago, a first-time author in Santa Cruz came out with a thoroughly entertaining “novel in stories” called Stop That Girl. The first-person protagonist was so vivid and real, with such an engaging sensibility, you almost felt she was alive and growing up somewhere in California. It’s good to know Elizabeth McKenzie is still creating characters like that. This time we meet MacGregor West, an acerbic, deadpan guy who never knew who his father was and at 22 still has not come to grips with the rather mysterious death of his mother when he was 9. As the novel opens, he is approaching a home in Pacific Heights; its return address is on a batch of empty envelopes he recently found in a shoe box “full of his mother’s loose ends,” and his first clue in uncovering her past, and thus his own. Here he meets another beguiling mess, Carolyn Ware, trapped in a fold-up bed by her much younger sister. So begins a tale that’s part mystery, part coming-of-age love story, part whirlwind tour of San Francisco. More, please." Pamela Feinsilber, San Francisco Magazine 
"Elizabeth McKenzie's wonderful, winning, and sympathetic novel frees you by enchanting you. Her hero, MacGregor West, glides around San Francisco--dappled in the liberal summer light of first love--wolfing tacos and suffering truths. When MacGregor begs his girlfriend not to freak out but to freak in--to stick by him and his dizzy, determined way of reckoning with the world--make sure you take his dare too. You'll want to buy a drink for this kid and for the first-rate author who gave him to us."David Schickler, author of Kissing in Manhattan and Sweet and Vicious