num_pages: 304
description: Sweet tea corn bread and soup beanseveryday fare for eight-year-old Alix French the precocious darling of a respected southern family. But nothing was ordinary about the day she met ten-year-old Nick Anderson a boy from the wrong side of town. Armed with only a tin of bee balm and steely determination Alix treats the raw evidence of a recent beating that mars his back an act that changes both of their lives forever.Through childhood disasters and teenage woes they cling together as friendship turns to love. The future looks rosy until the fateful night when Frank Anderson Nick's abusive father is shot to death in his filthy trailer.Suddenly Nick is goneleaving Alix alone confused and pregnant. For the next fifteen years she wrestles with the pain of Nick's abandonment a bad marriage her family and friends. But finally she's starting to get her life back together. Her divorce is almost final her business is booming and she's content if not happyuntil the day she looks up and sees Nick standing across the counter. He's backand he's not alone.Once again Alix is plunged into turmoil and pain as Nick tries to win her love something she resists with all her strength. Only one thing might break the protective wall she's built around her emotionsthe truth about Frank Anderson's death. But when that truth comes out and those walls crumble neither Alix nor Nick is prepared for the emotional explosion that could destroy as well as heal.
language: English
title: The Sweet Gum Tree
publisher: Cerridwen Press