The author crafted the setting and characters perfectly, making me feel as if I was completely immersed in small-town Arkansas. Even the secondary characters showed incredible growth and were important to the story. It felt like I literally watched them grow up and knew every aspect of their lives from start to finish. My favorite thing about this story was being able to follow the characters from childhood to adulthood. I can’t tell you how many times I would roll my ankle as a kid during the summer running through fallen gumballs from these darn trees. The culture depicted is the exact same as that of my friends in my hometown: a slow Southern small town, the sometimes small-minded community members, even the Sweet Gum tree itself. Though the story was set in Arkansas, it reminded me of growing up in East Texas. It had the old school feel of the books that made me love reading Indie Romance, without being out-of-date, despite being published in 2005. Finally, I had the push I needed and I loved every minute of reading this story. The Sweet Gum Tree was on my TBR and Kindle for ages, but I never made the time to read it. I posed the question of what to read next to my Instagram followers and everyone came through, helping me to create a list of upcoming reads for the rest of the month. At the time, I couldn’t make up my mind on what to read and nothing sounded appealing after several two-star books and a couple DNFs. Thank you so much to Talon from Under the Cover blog for helping me break the horrendous book slump I was in.

The Sweet Gum Tree by Katherine Allred