The Sweet Gum Tree

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Synopsis

Alix French is the granddaughter of a Judge, and a member of a highly regarded southern family. At eight years old, her life is forever changed when she meets ten-year-old Nick Anderson, a boy from the wrong side of the tracks. From the moment she sees the welts on his back, evidence of a recent beating at his abusive father's hands, she feels empathy for him. She treats his injured back with bee balm and after another incident, her grandfather, the Judge, stands up to his father and offers Nick a place to stay in their barn any time he needs to escape. Throughout their childhoods and teen years, Alix and Nick become inseparable with their relationship eventually taking a romantic turn. However, Nick's seeming attachment to Lindsey, a neighbor girl Alix's age, confuses her. Still she trusts Nick until the night his father is shot dead in his trailer and Nick confesses to doing it in self-defense. Knowing how bad Nick had it and not wanting him to go through a trial, the Judge pulls some strings to get him enlisted in the army instead, which means Nick leaving town.

Alix is heartbroken and discovers she's pregnant with no idea where Nick is or how to get in touch, so in a moment of desperation, she marries a friend whom she doesn't love. For fifteen long years, she wrestles with feelings of abandonment in her hour of need, a heartbreaking tragedy, her philandering husband, and difficult relationships with her family and friends. Throughout it all, Alix manages to prevail. Through grit and determination, she's built a successful business, is about to finalize her divorce, and has found a measure of contentment in life... until Nick shows up one day at her store, but he's not alone. He makes it clear that he wants Alix back, but after being angry with him for so long, Alix resists his overtures. Little by little, though, he chips away at the defenses she's built around her wounded heart. However, the only thing that might finally get her to let him in all the way is learning the truth about what really happened the night Frank Anderson died, but once revealed, it may also have the power to irrevocably break them apart.

Review

The Sweet Gum Tree is a stand-alone contemporary romance/women's fiction novel. While I don't recall the exact timeline being specified, I extrapolated from context clues that it actually takes place approximately between the 1970s and the 1990s. That sort of makes it historical but it doesn't technically meet the definition of a historical novel since it doesn't take place 50+ years prior to the publication date.

Eight-year-old Alix is from a well-off family who live in a small town in the South. When her grandfather, the Judge, goes to the junkyard to purchase a part for the truck he's fixing up, she tags along. There she meets Nick, who is two years older and the son of the town drunk who owns the salvage yard. The outgoing Alix starts chatting with Nick and when she spots welts on his back from a recent beating, she gets some bee balm from the Judge's truck to treat him and then promptly invites him to the church picnic. When he actually shows up, the townsfolk are rather aghast, but Alix and her family treat him like one of their own. After suffering another severe beating at his abusive father's hands, Nick goes to Alix for help, and the Judge takes his father to task, then gives Nick a room in their barn to stay in anytime he needs to escape his father's drunken tirades. Over the years, Nick and Alix grow close and become the best of friends, but Nick has also been looking out for Lindsey, a little girl Alix's age who is his next-door neighbor. When they reach their teen years, Nick and Alix's relationship takes a romantic turn, but fearing what her family and the townspeople might think, they keep their romance a secret. Meanwhile she's pressured into dating Hugh, the town's rich, golden boy, and due to circumstances Nick is reluctant to disclose, he feels he has to make everyone believe he's dating Lindsey. Just as Nick and Alix decide to take their relationship public, Nick's father is shot and Nick confesses to doing it in self-defense. The Judge pulls some strings to help Nick avoid going to trial, but instead he must leave town and join the army. Alix is heartbroken, and Nick has no sooner left than she finds herself pregnant. When Hugh offers marriage and a stable life for her unborn child, she accepts. Fifteen years later, though, after she's been through emotional hell and her marriage has failed, Nick finally returns to town. However, Alix's anger toward him has festered for so long, she has a hard time forgiving him for all that she's been through. The only hope they have of a reconciliation is honesty about the past, but the truth also has the power to break them forever.

At eight years old, Alix was a sweet little girl who was outgoing and full of empathy for others. The way she befriended Nick, who was the outcast at school because of his father's behavior and being from the wrong side of the tracks, was incredibly kind, and she generously shared her books, which were her treasured possessions with him, too. At the time, Alix was also kind to Lindsey, but as the nature of her relationship with Nick began to change, so did her feelings toward Lindsey. Still, she was very patient with Nick, trying to trust that what he was doing for Lindsey was important, but it was hard for her to not feel a little jealous of the time he spent with the other girl. When Nick's father was shot and Nick confessed, Alix was utterly heartbroken to let him go, but she didn't stop loving him. However, discovering she was pregnant and knowing that Nick wasn't going to be there for his child devastated her all over again. She felt like she had no choice but to accept her friend Hugh's offer of marriage, but being wed to him eventually turned out to be a disaster and tragedy struck, which sent her into a tailspin. Over time, she built up a deep hatred for Nick for not being there for her and certain things she learned through the town gossip mill only added to her anger so that when Nick finally did return, she had a hard time letting him back in and forgiving him. Overall, I thought Alix was wonderful as a child and still great as a teenager, but not long after Nick left, she became very jaded. I understood that life had dealt her a harsh blow and that to some extent her anger was a coping mechanism, but I'm not entirely sure I would have felt the same way. Sometimes I felt like she wasn't being fair to Nick, but I'm glad that ultimately she was able to rediscover her feelings for him, find forgiveness in her heart, and make peace.

Nick was a great kid who was nothing like his father. He was deeply affected by the abuse he suffered, but it didn't kill his empathy or stop him from being a protector to those around him. From the time he was a little kid, he was always looking out for his neighbor, Lindsey, who was a fellow outcast. Despite being tough at school when it came to those he cared about, he was willing to let Alix and her family look out for him. Because she cared for him when no one else did, he grew to care for her with a powerful love that never stopped no matter what happened. He hated having to put their relationship on hold in order to look out for Lindsey, but when the truth came out about why, it made perfect sense to me. He felt it was the only way he could keep her safe. Maybe he should have been more forthcoming with Alix about what was happening and sought help from her family like he had at times before, but he was still basically a kid at the time and was doing the best he could. I like that he always wore his heart on his sleeve for Alix, and it tore him apart to leave her, too. When he finally returned, he was determined to win Alix back and he set about doing it with some very romantic gestures. Even when she keeps brushing him off with her angry words and cold demeanor, he doesn't give up until she completely breaks him in a cruel moment. I adored Nick. He's a strong protector for those he loves, but at the same time, he's a sweet, cinnamon-roll hero who's extremely loving, giving, and self-sacrificing.

Overall, I very much enjoyed The Sweet Gum Tree, but I have to admit that I read parts of it with my heart in my throat, worried that it wouldn't have a happy ending. Because it does, I'm comfortable with classifying it as a romance, but the story doesn't take the usual track that most romances do, which is why I've also classified it as women's fiction. Occasionally I've seen romances begin when the main characters are children, but most of the time, it's merely a prologue. In this case, Nick and Alix's growing up years take up the first hundred pages or so of the book, until they're separated by events beyond their control. Luckily the fifteen year span while they're apart only lasted a couple of chapters, before Nick returns. However, by then Alix is so angry with him, she doesn't want to have anything to do with him. Her actions hurt and confuse Nick, and they were difficult for me to read as well. As I mentioned before, part of me understood her reaction, but she really lays into him on more than one occasion, then breaks some particularly painful news to him in a cruel way, which was also tough to read. I do have to give the author credit, though, for keeping me on the edge of my seat and eager to continue reading. The early parts of the story were tender and charming, turning passionate once Nick and Alix reach their teen years. I think it was sweet that Nick waited for Alix so they could share their first time together. During this time it's abundantly obvious that they're deeply in love and I'm sure they would have gotten married if not for his father. I have to admit that I kind of guessed at the secret Nick had been keeping, so perhaps in some ways, the story was a little predictable, but I still enjoyed getting there. I'm just glad that Nick and Alix were finally able to talk things out and get to the HEA they so richly deserved after all they'd been through. I can recommend The Sweet Gum Tree for anyone who likes an angsty, heartbreaking romance that eventually gets to that happy ending.

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Katherine Allred

Themes

Beta Heroes
Book Lovers
Friends Before Lovers
Opposite Sides of the Track
Reunion Stories
Tortured Heroes
Virgin Heroes