Somerset

Starred review from September 16, 2013
Bestselling author Meacham is back with a prequel to Roses that stands on its own as a sweeping historical saga, spanning the 19th century. This time Meacham delves into the backstory of the Tolivers and Warwicks before they settled in Howbutker, Tex. The son of a plantation owner in South Carolina, young Silas Toliver has big plans to join his best friend Jeremy Warwick on a wagon train to the new territory of Texas with his true love, Lettie. The only problem is that his father has died and left him with nothing, so he has no funds to pursue his dream—that is, until a neighboring plantation owner, Mr. Carson Wyndham, offers him an unorthodox deal: he’ll fund Toliver’s trip to Texas, and set him up with a plantation there, if Toliver will marry his daughter, Jessica Wyndham. Jessica helped free a slave and could cause scandal for the family if she stays in South Carolina. After much inner turmoil, Toliver agrees. And so begins a tangled love story, and a curse that follows the Toliver family through multiple generations. Rich with American history and pitch-perfect storytelling, fans and new readers alike will find themselves absorbed in the family saga that Meacham has proven—once again—talented in telling.

Meacham introduced us to the Tolivers, Warwicks, and Dumonts in ROSES, her epic saga of the settling of East Texas. Now narrator Teresa DeBerry's Southern accent helps set the time and place as listeners go back to 1835, filling in the families' previous six decades. The story spans their emigration from South Carolina's Plantation Alley to their settlement in the "black waxy" of the new territory of Texas, also covering the Civil War and the early twentieth century. DeBerry modulates her voice to identify characters from various stations of life. She smoothly navigates Meacham's flowery language, full of similes, as she tries to breathe life into a sprawling cast of characters living in complex historical times. N.E.M. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine