Off the Book Shelf: Tumbleweeds by Leila Meacham

About a year ago, I read Roses by Leila Meacham and absolutely fell in love with the story.  So when a friend of mine told me she had another book out, I went right out to get it.  And yay!  I was not disappointed.

Just like Roses, Tumbleweeds is set is Texas, but this time in the panhandle.  The story follows the lives of one young girl and two young boys who form a bond that is beyond friendship.  Then the story follows them from middle school up to middle age and how their lives are forever changed by a tragic event when they were in high school.

I love Leila Meacham's writing style and her story telling ability.  She has a way of pulling you in and not letting go of you.  Her stories also don't have the "happily ever after" type of endings.  Which I like...cause not every event wraps itself in a sweet little bow.  I think this is a great book and I highly, highly recommend it.  It would be a perfect end of summer read.  (And if you haven't read Roses...read it too!!!)

Recently orphaned, eleven-year-old Cathy Benson feels she has been dropped into a cultural and intellectual wasteland when she is forced to move from her academically privileged life in California to the small town of Kersey in the Texas Panhandle where the sport of football reigns supreme. She is quickly taken under the unlikely wings of up-and-coming gridiron stars and classmates John Caldwell and Trey Don Hall, orphans like herself, with whom she forms a friendship and eventual love triangle that will determine the course of the rest of their lives. Taking the three friends through their growing up years until their high school graduations when several tragic events uproot and break them apart, the novel expands to follow their careers and futures until they reunite in Kersey at forty years of age. Told with all of Meacham's signature drama, unforgettable characters, and plot twists, readers will be turning the pages, desperate to learn how it all plays out.