Only Love Can Break Your Heart

By Ed Tarkington

Book Overview

"A lush mystery-within-a-coming-of-age-tale-within-a-Southern-Gothic." --NPR Books "A richly textured portrait of small-town dysfunction and murder . . . Secrets abound, imaginations run wild." --The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Welcome to Spencerville, Virginia, 1977. Eight-year-old Rocky worships his older brother, Paul. Sixteen and full of rebel cool, Paul spends his days cruising in his Chevy Nova blasting Neil Young, cigarette dangling from his lips, arm slung around his beautiful, troubled girlfriend. Paul is happy to have his younger brother as his sidekick. Then one day, in an act of vengeance against their father, Paul picks up Rocky from school and nearly abandons him in the woods. Afterward, Paul disappears. Seven years later, Rocky is a teenager himself. He hasn't forgotten being abandoned by his boyhood hero, but he's getting over it, with the help of the wealthy neighbors' daughter, ten years his senior, who has taken him as her lover. Unbeknownst to both of them, their affair will set in motion a course of events that rains catastrophe on both their families. After a mysterious double murder brings terror and suspicion to their small town, Rocky and his family must reckon with the past and find out how much forgiveness their hearts can hold.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 161620382X
• ISBN13: 9781616203825
• Release Date: January 2016
• Publisher: Algonquin Books
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.99 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.8" x 1.0" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

Beautiful Title

I was drawn to this book by its title. " Only Love Can Break Your Heart", such a beautiful and thought provoking title. Unfortunately to me the book didn't hold up to its title. I found it to be quite bland and boring til about page 200 and then it got slightly interesting. Chapter 29, the last chapter of the book was the best part of the entire book! Such a disappointing read overall.