Former Gonzales resident Lee Doyle has written a novel that takes place in the Salinas Valley. This is the cover of Lee Doyle's novel, The Love We All Wait For.

Former Gonzales resident Lee Doyle, author of the book, "The Love We All Wait For," bases her story in the town of Tristes in the Salinas Valley. Tristes is Gonzales.

The main character in the book, 17-year-old Sheila O'Connor, suffers, endures and rebels her way through the teenage years during the 1970s.

She gives up her virginity in the Mission, on a chapel pew.

"I closed my eyes, he murmured 'Goodnight'. Our Lady, clutching a bouquet of white carnations, drifted across my eyelids."

The love interest is Buck Hanson, the handsome, charismatic, mysterious guy who wandered in town, one of those dangerous boys mothers don't want their girls to date.

The inspiration for the book, Doyle said, came from the Valley itself.

"The landscape of the Gabilan and San Lucia Mountains and the afternoon wind stayed in my bones, body and soul," Doyle said.

The book takes the reader through the Valley, beginning in Salinas, down to King City and familiar parts in between, with shifted geography to suit the story.

The book is very little about Doyle, but the characters and spicy dialogue are composites of people she knew as a girl growing up in the Valley, placed here and there in the story.

The story also frames the social tensions of the day, the conflicts between the Mexican-American "Cholos," and the "Aggies."

Doyle spent her years from the age of five to 17 in Gonzales. Her father, Tony Doyle, was a teacher at Greenfield Middle School and is credited with opening the first school computer lab in the valley.

Doyle's interest in writing may have begun with some "amazing teachers" in the name of Bill Wollman and David Rudolph. "Rudolph was the teacher who told me I could write," she said.

Doyle quit Gonzales High School at the age of 17 and left home for the Southern California coast.

"I moved around a bit, traveling," Doyle said. She lived for awhile in Southern France, and then returned to San Francisco where she graduated in 1991 with a bachelor's degree in French.

Doyle lives in Marin County with her husband and daughter, and is currently working on her second novel, "Sweet Mundane," a book about a politically incorrect women's group.

Lee Doyle will speak about and sign, "The Love We All Wait For," at the home of Maxine Torres Pool, March 21 from 6-8 p.m.

For information, contact Maxine Torres Pool at the e-mail address: MTPool@aol.com, or phone, 484-0618.

"The Love We All Wait For," is published by Komenar Publishing, 1756 Lacassie Ave., Suite 202, Walnut Creek, CA 94596 and is available at Barnes & Noble online, community bookstores and Amazon.

The following is a link to the blog post about the novel in progress:

http://lwdoyle.wordpress.com/2008/12/28/where-possums-lurk/ .

Doyle's website is: www.leedoyleauthor.com .