Tawni O'Dell

Back Roads Tawni O'Dell

Harley Altmyer should be in college drinking Rolling Rock and chasing girls. He should be freed from his closed-minded, stricken coal town, with its lack of jobs and no sense of humor. Instead, hes constantly reminded of just how messed up his life is. With his mother in jail for killing his abusive father, Harley is an orphan with the responsibilities of an adult and the fiery, aggressive libido of a teenager. Just nineteen years old, hes marooned in the Pennsylvania backwoods caring for his three younger sisters, whose feelings about him range from stifling dependence to loathing. And once he develops an obsession with the sexy, melancholic mother of two living down the road, those Victorias Secret catalogs just wont do the trick anymore. He wants Callie Mercer so badly he fears he will explode. But its the family secrets, the lies, and the unspoken truths that light the fuse and erupt into a series of staggering surprises, leaving whats left of his family in tatters. Through every ordeal, the unforgettable Harley could never know that his endearing humor, his love for his sisters, and his bumbling heroics would redeem them all. Funny and heartbreaking, Tawni ODells pitch-perfect characters capture the maddening confusion of adolescence and the prickly nature of family with irony and unerring honesty. Back Roads is a riveting novel by a formidable talent.