Thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy of A Thousand Steps. An interesting story that takes place in 1968, it does a good job of evoking the period and the place. Sex, drugs, and mystery in Laguna Beach. 16 year old high school student Matt Anthony is forced to grow up very quickly—with a family comprised of a hippie, druggie mother, a father who abandoned the family early on, a brother counting the days until he’s home from Viet Nam, and a sister who has gone missing. He has to be totally self-reliant for his food and shelter on the meager money that he makes on his paper route. In addition, he is at the start of what could be a first relationship with someone he’s had a crush on since 4th grade. With that as background, Matt knows his sister, Jazz, would not have left voluntarily and is frustrated by the lack of interest from the police in solving her disappearance. He begins a search for Jazz that consumes the book and finds plenty of trouble along the way. For me, the book bogged down a little in the search,, especially the door to door aspect, felt repetitive, and it diminished the suspense of the book. There was a satisfactory payoff.

In A Thousand Steps by T. Jefferson Parker, the author blends historical fiction, a thriller, and a coming of age story in a gripping tale set in 1968 in Laguna Beach, California. The protagonist, Matt Anthony is 16 and lives with his mom, Julie, and his sister, Jasmine (Jazz). His father occasionally writes or calls, but Matt hasn’t seen him in six years. His mother is hooked on drugs. Matt has a paper route, is always hungry, and seems to be the only responsible one in the house. When 18-year-old Jazz doesn’t come home the police think she’s just run away from home. Matt doesn’t believe that and seems to be the only one looking for her. At the same time, he wants to ask Laurel out on a date and is looking forward to his brother Kyle returning home from the war.

Matt is an appealing, determined, and likeable character. (One of the few in the novel.) He takes on responsibilities that the adults in his life should have. Instead, they’re irresponsible and undependable. Despite this, the characters felt authentic.

This novel is extremely well-written and is often heart-wrenching and distressing. The author does a great job of depicting the times and place. The prevalence of drugs as well as the attitudes of the times toward hippies, the police, and the Vietnam War are vividly portrayed. I was stunned by some of the comments Matt’s father made to him on the phone. I was also angry at his mother. No child should be treated like that.

Overall, I am glad that I read this novel, but it wasn’t always an easy read.

Macmillan-Tor/Forge – Forge Books and T. Jefferson Parker provided a complimentary digital ARC of this novel via NetGalley. This is my honest review. Opinions are mine alone and are not biased in any way. Publication date is currently set for January 11, 2022.

Somehow, I’ve managed to miss reading any of T. Jefferson Parker’s 26 prior books. While this is the first, it won’t be the last.
The story takes the reader back to Laguna Beach, 1968. It’s all free love, peace and drugs. Matt Anthony is sixteen. He’s a good kid with a paper route, working to help his mom pay the bills since she seems to use most of her money to buy drugs. When his 18 year old sister goes missing, he’s the only one to care enough to seriously search for her. The police disregard him, no matter how much proof he brings them.
I found Matt to be a great character, coming across as totally real. He’s caught in a bad spot and has no idea what to do. And the adults around him are either undependable or don’t have his best interests at heart. My heart just went out to him.
Parker also does a great job giving us a sense of the time and place. He manages to weave the protests, the Vietnam War, the drugs and the search for mystical meaning into a tableau that took me right back to those days. The book moves at a brisk pace. Some events felt a little unrealistic, but as a whole, it totally worked.
My thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan/Forge for an advance copy of this book.

T. Jefferson Parker’s A Thousand Steps is the coming-of-age story of a Laguna Beach, California, boy who is largely having to do it all on his own. Matt’s father deserted the family six years earlier; his brother is a Vietnam tunnel rat; his mother seems determined to drown her own problems in booze and drugs; and his only sister has just been kidnapped. Matt may be the youngest member of his family, but he is smart enough to know that he is the only hope is sister has now.

It’s 1968 and Laguna Beach is attracting naive dropouts and cynical drug pushers from all over the country. Idiots like Timothy Leary are taking advantage of the new drug culture’s chaos to make themselves famous and rich at the expense of anyone and everyone they can exploit - and it seems that way too many people in Laguna Beach are happy enough to be exploited. Those protesting the justifiably unpopular war in Vietnam make it even easier for the unscrupulous to make a quick buck from all the turmoil. Right in the middle of all of this, Jasmine, Matt’s sister, disappears and no one seems overly concerned about that other than sixteen-year-old Matt, who decides to find his sister on his own if he has to.

Tied down by a daily paper route that is his only source of income, and never sure where his next meal is coming from, Matt still manages to spend his every spare moment in search of his sister, a search that eventually attracts the attention of the Laguna Beach police. The police realize that Matt gets around, and one of them wants to turn him into an informer while another, more sympathetic, cop encourages Matt to keep doing what he’s doing because it is Jasmine’s best chance at being found alive. The boy is in so far over his head, though, that he will be lucky to survive the next few days himself.

Bottom Line: A Thousand Steps makes for a good coming-of-age story, but its setting is really the novel’s strongest point. Parker vividly captures a place, and a time, in American history that was every bit as ugly as it is memorable, a period that changed the country forever. For readers who don’t remember living through those days themselves, A Thousand Steps is a little like jumping on a time machine and traveling back to the counterculture of the late sixties.

Really enjoyed this book. A brilliantly evocative snapshot of California in the 1960s - the descriptions and details are perfect.
Matt’s sister goes missing and he searches for her, doing a lot of growing up in the process. This is an oversimplification because I don’t want to give anything away but it’s an absorbing read by a confident writer.

When I first read T. Jefferson Parker’s Laguna Heat back in 1985, I had recently moved to Santa Cruz and was ecstatic to be living in a small beach town again — because I grew up in South Orange County (specifically in and around Laguna Beach) and graduated high school in 1965. So I know the area well (at least the area as it was then, because overdevelopment has ruined most of the good things about the area). Anyway, I have read all of Parker’s books since then, loving many and being “meh” about a few…but I always like the ones set in Orange County, so I was extremely happy to receive a copy of A Thousand Steps from Macmillan-Tor/Forge and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The title got me instantly, as I remember the Thousand Steps beach and as I read, I was transported back to Laguna in the 60s. The title refers both to a location and to the effort made by the protagonist, Matt Antony. Like Matt, I lived in a “drafty and uninsulated one-bath box held together by loud plumbing and temperamental electricity.” Matt is sixteen and struggling to get by. He survives on money earned from his paper route and frequently eats fish he catches in the ocean. His mother has a bad weed habit (plentiful in the area in the 60s), and his ex-cop father is no longer around. When his sister disappears right around the time the body of a young female washes up on the beach, Matt tries to get the police interested, but the town sees lots of runaways and the police sort of blow him off. It’s a place where the police don’t really believe or trust the hippies, and most of the locals don’t trust the police.

Matt volunteers at a head shop where he hears gossip and learns about weirdness taking place at a guru’s retreat up in the hills. When he goes to check it out, he “…works his way uphill and takes a break at his highest house on Bluebird Canyon Drive.” I was transported back in time as I lived at the very end of Bluebird Canyon in the mid-sixties. The story follows Matt’s efforts to find out what happened to his sister, and the book is both a thriller and a coming of age story, immersing the reader in an unusual small city at an incredible time.

Great character development, terrific presentation of a real place in a real time of upheaval and change, and a strong plot. I LOVED it. Five stars.

This book just goes to prove I was born during the wrong decade! The book is about Matt who is pretty much your normal typical boy from 1968 and his sister goes missing, so he is trying to do everything he can to help find her. I don't really want to say anymore about the storyline of the book because I don't want to ruin it, I will say that I absolutely loved this book, the details were impressive and the characters were very well written. I almost felt like I was there which is just about the best thing that can happen when you read a really good book! The actual mystery of the story was interesting and there were some twists and turns that I didn't see coming. All in all as I said before this is a great book and I would recommend this to anyone!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for a honest review.

This book was a blast from the past. This mystery involving a death (or four) and a missing teenager and a cast of many hippies gives one a glimpse into a very different time in our nations history while the search for Matt's sister carries drives the story.

The story is set in 1969 in Laguna Beach, California. There were many references that took me right back to that era. I am not sure if that is a good thing or now. In retrospect, it was not a good time.
However, it is a good story and a great reminder that people are not always who or what they seem to be.
Enjoy!

T. Jefferson Parker is a hometown guy! Lived in Tustin (where I live) moved from LA when he was 5 years old and attended local schools as well as college. Then moved to nearby Laguna Beach and worked in Irvine. He now lives in Fallbrook in North San Diego County. Many of his stories are based in SoCal.
There is more about T. Jefferson Parker in this link ~ that is if you are interested ~
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-09-05-vw-24906-story.html

This story is Laguna Beach in 1968 ~ BTW There actually is a beach in South Laguna called “The 1000 Step Beach ~
https://www.californiabeaches.com/beach/thousand-steps-beach-laguna/

Matt Anthony is a teen living in beautiful Laguna Beach; however, his life isn’t so beautiful.
His mother, Julie is a mess usually strung out on weed, his father, Bruce an ex-cop is nowhere to be seen.
He works hard trying to earn money as a paper-boy and also catching fish and selling to a local market.
When his sister Jasmine goes missing, and is thought by authorities as a runaway; Matt, of course, thinks the worst when a girl’s body is found on the beach.
Some nasty stuff is going on with “The Vortex of Purity” a cult that lures teens to a life of inner peace with LDS. (Aww yes ‘The Brotherhood of Eternal Love’ was very much like “The Vortex of Purity”. The Brotherhood branched out across the country were known as the weed smuggling “Hippie Mafia”)
Oops back to the story ~ Dad comes back and gets involved and things get exciting.

This was a great story for me.! Laguna Beach is nearly in our back yard! It is known for its beautiful shoreline, fantastic restaurants, fun shops, the amazing Pageant of the Masters that include three summer-long art festivals, and everyone wants ‘The Greeter’ to wave at them but there was a ‘hippie time!

Want to thank NetGalley and Macmillan-Tor/Forge for this eGalley. This file has been made available to me before publication in an early form for an honest professional review.
Publishing Release Date scheduled for January 11, 2022

Stared Review

Summary: A teen boy growing up on Labuan Beach and in the background of the peace and far out generations with a brother on his last days of his Vietnam tour. When he sees his first dead girl being recovered from the beach after missing for several days now found dead. Shocked he learns his sister is too missing. Though a drug riddled Mother and a deadbeat dad he takes on the search for her through the streets of Latina with some help from the police who also have alternate agendas.

Comments: The tension is thicker then the summer marine layer. The writing is straight forward greatness. The characters and generations is like a Kaleidoscope spinning in a haze of pot smoke. This could be the crime novel of the year. Simply fantastic must read.

Growing up in Laguna Beach, Matt Anthony is used to the surfer/hippy vibe of his town, where Timothy Leary holds forth on the value of dropping acid and dropping out, a spiritual guru has established a retreat for enlightenment at the site of a former college, and Matt is doing his best to earn a few bucks delivering papers on his bike and supplement his meager food budget by fishing in the surf. His father, an ex-cop, is absent and his mother's weed habit is getting worse. Then Matt's sister vanishes just as the body of a girl is found on the beach. The cops don't seem very interested in his sister's fate, thinking she's just another runaway, so it's up to Matt to find her, enlisting along the way the help of a girl he's long admired and finally had the nerve to approach.

He has a few leads, thanks to his volunteer work at a head shop where its owner believes LSD will revolutionize society (though regular run-ins with local cops and threats from a new biker gang are complicating things), a visit to the guru's retreat (free food!), and a clandestine trip to see what goes on at a notorious party house where his sister may have been spotted. As the days pass, he grows more desperate and determined.

Parker vividly evokes a moment in time at the place he calls home, with the "thousand steps" of the title a real set of steps leading to the beach, but also a metaphor for young Matt's dogged search. Matt is a fine guide to the confusing and often destructive tidal currents of the 1968 drug-drenched search-for-enlightenment scene.

This was an awesome and totally bitchen book (and I'm allowed to say that since it was my era)! It's 1968 in Laguna Beach and Max's sister, Jasmine disappears one night and doesn't come home. In between his paper route and fishing, Max is determined to find her but the police are little help. In addition The Vortex of Purity opens, encouraging young people to follow them and discover inner peace. Timothy Leary is also in town pushing LSD as a way to expand consciousness. Everything gets dicey when Max's dad--estranged from his drug-addicted mom gets involved. Lots of great action, tense moments, twists and turns, just the way I like my T. Jefferson Parker books!

Thank you NetGalley, Forge Books---- best pub out there! And Author for the amazing chance to read this outstanding advance e-book!


A Laguna Beach, California, 1968 thriller mystery? Yes please! I'm there!.
This was a great book from start to finish.
Just a truly engrossing, un-put-downable, fast paced read with an amazing cast of characters!
This book is soooo good. I loved it so much, the characters are unique, flawed, compelling, the mystery is fascinating. I can't recommend this book higher to lovers of mystery and interesting characters.

Thank you again for the opportunity to read and review A Thousand Steps! I truly enjoyed the hell outta this book!
I'll post to my Goodreads, Bookstagram and Facebook account closer to pub date!

A great trip back in time for those of us that remember Orange County in the 60’s. The author uses the era to set down his story, a very well-designed mystery/ thriller, guaranteed to entertain.