Holly Parker has no one to turn to. Her best friend, Marvelle Holman, is consumed by grief and guilt about the suicide of her husband. Holly's ex-husband, Burke Parker, yearns to own an automatic rifle and enjoys blowing up gopher holes, so he's no help. Holly's affair with the married man who runs the restaurant in Venus, Kansas, where she works as a waitress, has turned complicated and unhappy, and Owen, her teenaged son, flirts with delinquency and sleeps with his former sixth-grade teacher.

Meanwhile, her next-door neighbor, a veterinarian, offers Holly passion that she can't quite requite. But there is this state trooper named Gene Rollison, who lives a life to himself in a neat, respectable trailer on the edge of Venus. He has a knack for turning up at tough moments in Holly's life - after a traffic accident or when someone has locked himself in a garage or before a high school kid gets into trouble.

West of Venus is a quiet and powerful novel, rich in heartland humor and small-town detail. In this book, Judy Troy demonstrates how in matters of loss and love ordinary people lead extraordinary lives.