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Cedar Hollow #3
Entangled Thorns
Beth Sloan has spent the majority of her life trying to escape the memories of a difficult childhood. Born into the infamous Pritchett family of Cedar Hollow, West Virginia, she grew up hard, surrounded not only by homemade stills and corn liquor, but by an impoverished family that more often than not preferred life on the wrong side of the law.
After the mysterious death of her brother Luke at the age of thirteen, seventeen year old Beth and her younger sister Naomi ran away from home, never to return. 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.
But the arrival of an unwelcome letter threatens to change all that.
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.
After the mysterious death of her brother Luke at the age of thirteen, seventeen year old Beth and her younger sister Naomi ran away from home, never to return. 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.
But the arrival of an unwelcome letter threatens to change all that.
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.
181 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 12, 2012
80 people are currently reading
192 people want to read
About the author
Melinda Clayton
21 books115 followersMelinda Clayton writes primarily southern psychological suspense, and is the author of eight novels, numerous articles and short stories, and two family genealogies. She has an Ed.D. in Education Administration, is a licensed psychotherapist in Colorado and Florida (now on retired status), and teaches MFA classes for SNHU COCE.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
December 6, 2013
Entangled Thorns by Melinda Clayton is a 2013 Thomas-Jacob publication. 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 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.
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! I recommend this book to lovers of fiction/literature, family drama, and women's fiction.
This is an A+
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 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.
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! I recommend this book to lovers of fiction/literature, family drama, and women's fiction.
This is an A+
August 4, 2012
Entangled Thorns
By Melinda Clayton
ISBN 13: 978-1937227616, paperback $13.95; Kindle ASIN B008FRA3E8 $4.99 NOOKbook 2940033289530 $4.99, also available from Smashwords for $4.99
I have rarely read a book that has moved me as much as Entangled Thorns has. 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 the pain and the dysfunction they fled, a dysfunction that still exists back in the hollows of Appalachia, regardless of the coming our “modern age” and the enlightenment it has supposedly brought to these mountains. 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.
By Melinda Clayton
ISBN 13: 978-1937227616, paperback $13.95; Kindle ASIN B008FRA3E8 $4.99 NOOKbook 2940033289530 $4.99, also available from Smashwords for $4.99
I have rarely read a book that has moved me as much as Entangled Thorns has. 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 the pain and the dysfunction they fled, a dysfunction that still exists back in the hollows of Appalachia, regardless of the coming our “modern age” and the enlightenment it has supposedly brought to these mountains. 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.
July 7, 2022
Have enjoyed this series started the last one. Can’t stop reading
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 26, 2024
Awesome
Kept you interested from the start to the finish. You feel as if you are right there watching as.it happens all 3 books
Kept you interested from the start to the finish. You feel as if you are right there watching as.it happens all 3 books
December 7, 2013
In my review of Melinda Clayton's book Appalachian Justice, I compared her writing to the great Flannery O'Connor. If Flannery were alive today, she'd no doubt be reading Clayton's latest book called Entangled Thorns and singing its praises.
In it, Clayton returns to Cedar Hollow again (think Faulkner's fictional Yoknapatawpha County). 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 13.
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.
It has the essence and Southern drawl of Cleo Threadgood sharing stories with Evelyn Couch in Fannie Flagg's Whistle Stop Cafe. We see the womanly bonds experienced amongst "steel magnolias" in the beauty shop of Truvy Jones. And we bask in the strong settings that were built from mountain sunsets, frog gigging, creek fishing, 'shine tasting, and cave dwelling that will have you reminiscing of a man named Mark Twain and the places he took his good ole boys Sawyer and Finn.
Most importantly, this is a book about family heritage - the strains from it we accept because they are in our blood and cannot be changed, the ghosts we ignore but who won't go away, and the past we wish not to repeat when we start a family of our own. As the title suggests, we sometimes become so entangled in the lives of our parents - whether that be an abusive father or a passive mother - and we try so hard to forget where we came from, that instead we forget who we are. And that's the beauty of a book like this, or any of Mrs. Clayton's books for that matter. It reminds us who we are.
In it, Clayton returns to Cedar Hollow again (think Faulkner's fictional Yoknapatawpha County). 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 13.
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.
It has the essence and Southern drawl of Cleo Threadgood sharing stories with Evelyn Couch in Fannie Flagg's Whistle Stop Cafe. We see the womanly bonds experienced amongst "steel magnolias" in the beauty shop of Truvy Jones. And we bask in the strong settings that were built from mountain sunsets, frog gigging, creek fishing, 'shine tasting, and cave dwelling that will have you reminiscing of a man named Mark Twain and the places he took his good ole boys Sawyer and Finn.
Most importantly, this is a book about family heritage - the strains from it we accept because they are in our blood and cannot be changed, the ghosts we ignore but who won't go away, and the past we wish not to repeat when we start a family of our own. As the title suggests, we sometimes become so entangled in the lives of our parents - whether that be an abusive father or a passive mother - and we try so hard to forget where we came from, that instead we forget who we are. And that's the beauty of a book like this, or any of Mrs. Clayton's books for that matter. It reminds us who we are.
November 8, 2012
Entangled Thorns by Melinda Clayton
This review was originally posted on Big Al's Books and Pals review blog on Monday, October 29, 2012
Told through multiple points of view, Ms Clayton does an excellent job devoting each chapter to a single character in this heart-wrenching story. She takes us on an emotional journey into the past of a dysfunctional, but proud family, to discover how abuse affects all members of a family and the dynamics of the abuse that surrounds them. By singling out and developing each character individually she explores how these cycles tend to continue, how the courageous ones try to break the cycle, and how things are not always the way they seem. Not many authors have the expertise to accomplish this without making judgments the way Ms Clayton does.
I love the style in which this story is written, through inner dialogue, we are allowed to feel what each character is feeling and gain an understanding of why things are the way they are and how each character perceives them. We are also given insight through the eyes of Kay Langley, the owner of the local café that serves as the town’s hub. Through her eyes we see a caring outsider’s view of how the town views this family and its individual members. One of my favorite elements of this story is the fact that Beth took her seventeen year-old daughter, Marissa, along with her on this difficult trip to face her ghosts. With Marissa along we are given three generations of view points.
This character driven story flows well considering we are getting the story from five different characters. It is incredibly well told and I enjoyed my trip back to Cedar Hollows. There is a definite feeling of hope as this story draws to an end and I found it inspiring. I will share this book with my daughters and grand daughters. One of the things I appreciate about reading a hard story like this one is it makes me reevaluate my life and I realize my life is not so bad after all; things could be a whole lot worse. Melinda Clayton has won herself a spot on my ‘must buy’ list for future books.
Although this is the third book about Cedar Hollow Ms Clayton has written, I believe it can be read as a standalone story. You may miss some of the richness of the minor characters or of the area in general in doing so though.
At the end of this story Ms Clayton has included questions for book clubs to consider after reading her book. This would be a great book for discussion because everyone has their own story and view point and I am sure everyone can identify with one of more of the characters in this book. I know I did.
**Originally written for "Books and Pals" book blog. May have received a free review copy. **
This review was originally posted on Big Al's Books and Pals review blog on Monday, October 29, 2012
Told through multiple points of view, Ms Clayton does an excellent job devoting each chapter to a single character in this heart-wrenching story. She takes us on an emotional journey into the past of a dysfunctional, but proud family, to discover how abuse affects all members of a family and the dynamics of the abuse that surrounds them. By singling out and developing each character individually she explores how these cycles tend to continue, how the courageous ones try to break the cycle, and how things are not always the way they seem. Not many authors have the expertise to accomplish this without making judgments the way Ms Clayton does.
I love the style in which this story is written, through inner dialogue, we are allowed to feel what each character is feeling and gain an understanding of why things are the way they are and how each character perceives them. We are also given insight through the eyes of Kay Langley, the owner of the local café that serves as the town’s hub. Through her eyes we see a caring outsider’s view of how the town views this family and its individual members. One of my favorite elements of this story is the fact that Beth took her seventeen year-old daughter, Marissa, along with her on this difficult trip to face her ghosts. With Marissa along we are given three generations of view points.
This character driven story flows well considering we are getting the story from five different characters. It is incredibly well told and I enjoyed my trip back to Cedar Hollows. There is a definite feeling of hope as this story draws to an end and I found it inspiring. I will share this book with my daughters and grand daughters. One of the things I appreciate about reading a hard story like this one is it makes me reevaluate my life and I realize my life is not so bad after all; things could be a whole lot worse. Melinda Clayton has won herself a spot on my ‘must buy’ list for future books.
Although this is the third book about Cedar Hollow Ms Clayton has written, I believe it can be read as a standalone story. You may miss some of the richness of the minor characters or of the area in general in doing so though.
At the end of this story Ms Clayton has included questions for book clubs to consider after reading her book. This would be a great book for discussion because everyone has their own story and view point and I am sure everyone can identify with one of more of the characters in this book. I know I did.
**Originally written for "Books and Pals" book blog. May have received a free review copy. **
April 20, 2015
This is a wonderful books about a dysfunctional Appalachian family. From the time the children are born they are abused by their alcoholic father and their psychologically cold mother. It is a character driven novel with each person sharing his/her own voice. This torn family comes to terms with their terrible pasts and realize how it has affected them their entire lives.
December 6, 2015
"Entangled Thorns is the third book in Melinda Clayton’s Cedar Hollow series..."
See the full book review here: http://nighttimenarratives.novelblogs...
See the full book review here: http://nighttimenarratives.novelblogs...
September 22, 2013
Very moving book.
January 20, 2016
Third one!
The third in a series. I am really enjoying these mysteries and down-home country-type books. They are a good read.
The third in a series. I am really enjoying these mysteries and down-home country-type books. They are a good read.
July 1, 2016
This story tells us about two sisters and how they struggled with growing up as children of the local moonshiner family. Lots of angst!
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews