Entangled Thorns (Cedar Hollow Series Book 3)

This book was provided to be by the author in exchange for an honest review. Raised in Cedar Hollow, West Virginia, Beth and her sister, Naomi left home right after the death of their thirteen year old brother, Luke. Luke died in an accident and Beth has never really dealt with the tragedy. When she receives a letter from Cedar Hollow from an hold friend explaining that her mother is in severe health, Beth and her sister come Entangled Thorns by Melinda Clayton is a Thomas-Jacob publication.

Entangled Thorns: Cedar Hollow Series, Book 3 (Unabridged)

When she receives a letter from Cedar Hollow from an hold friend explaining that her mother is in severe health, Beth and her sister come together for the first time in years and head back to West Virginia to deal with the past once and for all. This the story of a dysfunctional family mired in a tradition of alcohol stills and drinking, physical abuse and mental cruelty out in the backwoods of West Virginia.

Beth started to drink at a very young age and is now a full fledged alcoholic. Her marriage is in a rut, her teenage daughter is living through the trauma of losing her once very hands on and involved mother to alcohol. Naomi grew up to be a bestselling author and swore off booze, never wanting anything to do with it once she left home. But everyone in the story was traumatized by the death of Luke, even if they never knew him. The really unique thing about this book is that each person involved gets to tell the story from their own unique perspective. Beth is the main focus of the book, but her daughter, sister, mother and husband and the owner of a local diner who knew the family all their lives all get a say in how they perceive things.

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This is an emotional story, but one that gives us hope for all those involved. The one thing they all need to face will bring about a long needed closure to many open wounds and the healing process can begin for all of them , but especially for Beth. This is a new to me author.

I must say I'm quite impressed. I loved this story!

Entangled Thorns by Melinda Clayton

It is a story of family honor, even when mistakenly given; of addiction; of dysfunction and strange as it may sound, of mountain pride and the strength of Appalachia. In Entangled Thorns , Clayton once again brings readers into her fictional town of Cedar Hollow, West Virginia, this time through several entirely new characters with ties to Cedar Hollow from a childhood now almost thirty years past. It is the story of two girls, Beth and Naomi, who ran away from Cedar Hollow when they were in their mid-teens, following the death of their brother.

It is the story of anger, denial and the hope that you can rise above the circumstances into which you were born. And it is quite possibly the best book I have read, beating out the likes of James Michener, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen and Mark Twain though it lacks the epic proportions of many of those works. Like the books by these writers Entangled Thorns stands to be remembered as a classic that describes an era and a people too little understood. It describes the life lived in the mountains of Appalachia, among child abuse and moonshine accurately and without the blinders of illusion that so many writers put over it to romanticize an issue they have little understanding of.

It is as real as can be and because of this it speaks to the heart and the soul in a way that only truth can. It is fiction, pure and simple, but it is stunning fiction at its best.

In the stories of Beth, Naomi and their families, both current families and family of origin, Clayton weaves a colorful, though not necessarily pretty, picture of mountain life. Amid stories of sleeping on the tin roof on nights when the creek would rise up into the yard, and fishing and catching lightning bugs, is the story of a family of moonshiners who put their children to work as testers when they were still toddlers and of the legacy of pain and alcoholism that left behind.

It is a story of the ability of the human spirit to rise above circumstances and seek something better like a plant searching for sun, and it is the story of secrets that have the power to destroy us even years later. This book is real, it is deep and it is touching in a way few books are. It earns my highest recommendation.

Dec 07, Shannon Yarbrough rated it it was amazing. If Flannery were alive today, she'd no doubt be reading Clayton's latest book called Entangled Thorns and singing its praises. Though the Platte clan from her previous books pay a visit, Clayton paints a portrait of a different family's woes, that of the Pritchett family--a gun toting, moo In my review of Melinda Clayton's book Appalachian Justice, I compared her writing to the great Flannery O'Connor. Though the Platte clan from her previous books pay a visit, Clayton paints a portrait of a different family's woes, that of the Pritchett family--a gun toting, moonshine making, crass bunch white trash and proud led by their heavy-handed and abusive patriarch, Junior.

The story focuses on his two daughters, Beth and Naomi, who escaped the clutches both their father and the mountain town had on them by catching a train to Memphis shortly after their brother Luke died. And they never looked back. Naomi became a famous writer. Beth married and had children of her own, but still suffers from the demons of the bottle thanks to her family upbringing which required the children to be taste-testers of the 'shine until they turned When a hometown friend named Kay, also the owner of the only diner within fifty miles, writes to the two sisters to inform them their mother is dying and its time to make amends, the siblings plan a hesitant trip back to Cedar Hollow.

Here, Beth and her own daughter, Marissa, face their own hardships, thirty year old family secrets are revealed, and the two sisters seek forgiveness with their aging mother. Entangled Thorns is a gossipy grapevine of voices so true to small town backwoods and church pew chatter, but Clayton captures her characters' voices perfectly. The entire book is told in the first person point-of-view as chapters alternate between the voices of Beth, Naomi, their mother Geraldine, friend Kay, and Marissa.

As the years passed, Beth suppressed the painful memories and managed to create a comfortable if troubled life with her husband, Mark, and their two children in an upscale suburb outside of Memphis, Tennessee.

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Against her better judgment, and at the urging of her sister, Naomi, Beth agrees to return to Cedar Hollow, to the memories she's worked so hard to forget. When old resentments and family secrets are awakened, Beth must risk everything to face the truth about what really happened to Luke that long-ago summer night. Actually, my mother and I listened to it on Audible. It was so real, we were engrossed and could not stop until finished. The characters had great depth and were believable. This tragic family situation had damaged all of them in different ways.

The descriptions were vivid and we felt we were there with them. What was one of the most memorable moments of Entangled Thorns? But the arrival of an unwelcome letter threatens to change all that. When old resentments and family secrets are awakened, Beth must risk everything to face the truth about what really happened to Luke that long ago summer night.

If Flannery were alive today, she'd no doubt be reading Clayton's latest book called Entangled Thorns and singing its praises. Though the Platte clan from her previous books pay a visit, Clayton paints a portrait of a different family's woes, that of the Pritchett family--a gun toting, moonshine making, crass bunch white trash and proud led by their heavy-handed and abusive patriarch, Junior. The story focuses on his two daughters, Beth and Naomi, who escaped the clutches both their father and the mountain town had on them by catching a train to Memphis shortly after their brother Luke died.

And they never looked back.

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Naomi became a famous writer. Beth married and had children of her own, but still suffers from the demons of the bottle thanks to her family upbringing which required the children to be taste-testers of the 'shine until they turned When a hometown friend named Kay, also the owner of the only diner within fifty miles, writes to the two sisters to inform them their mother is dying and its time to make amends, the siblings plan a hesitant trip back to Cedar Hollow.