Book Summary and Reviews of Roses by Leila Meacham

Roses by Leila Meacham

Roses

by Leila Meacham

  • Critics' Consensus (2):
  • Readers' Rating (3):
  • Published:
  • Jan 2010, 624 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

Spanning the 20th century, the story of Roses takes place in a small East Texas town against the backdrop of the powerful timber and cotton industries, industries controlled by the scions of the town's founding families. Cotton tycoon Mary Toliver and timber magnate Percy Warwick should have married but unwisely did not, and now must deal with the deceit, secrets, and tragedies of their choice and the loss of what might have been--not just for themselves but for their children, and children's children. With expert, unabashed, big-canvas storytelling, Roses covers a hundred years, three generations of Texans and the explosive combination of passion for work and longing for love.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. Readers who like an old-fashioned saga will devour this sprawling novel of passion and revenge. Highly recommended." - Library Journal

"This enthralling stunner, a good old-fashioned read, may herald the overdue return of those delicious doorstop epics from such writers as Barbara Taylor Bradford and Colleen McCullough." - Publishers Weekly

"A suitably long and intermittently engaging descendant of such Southern-fried epics as Gone with the Wind .... just the thing for genre fans with time to spare." - Kirkus Reviews

"The writing of Roses is fraught with problems. First, it is formal and stilted, as though the book were written in the 1950s rather than in 2009. The main characters are sketchily drawn, and Mary, in particular, is as much characterized by her clothes as by her thoughts, which are few." - The Cleveland Plain Dealer

"The book has been compared to Gone With the Wind, and it will appeal to readers who cherish the ideal of Southern chivalry. Sympathetic portraits of genteel aristocrats tend to skirt the South's thorniest topics, class and race, and that's the path Meacham has taken. She's written a love story, not a treatise on social change. Mary's communist brother briefly raises questions of economic inequality, but racial tensions seem not to exist in this fictional East Texas town. Old-fashioned is a tricky phrase. Does it convey 'timeless charm' or simply 'outdated'? Chances are, most readers of Roses will vote firmly for 'timeless charm.' - The Dallas News.

This information about Roses was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Leila Meacham Author Biography

Photo: Marie Mangmore/Langmore Photography

Leila Meacham lived in San Antonio, Texas. She was the author of a number of bestselling novels including Roses, Somerset and Tumbleweeds. She died in September 2021.

Name Pronunciation
Leila Meacham: me-chuhm

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more literary fiction...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
Broken Country (Reese's Book Club)
by Clare Leslie Hall
A love triangle reveals deadly secrets in this thriller for fans of The Paper Palace and Where the Crawdads Sing.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    The Original
    by Nell Stevens

    In a grand English country house in 1899, an aspiring art forger must unravel whether the man claiming to be her long-lost cousin is an impostor.

  • Book Jacket

    Angelica
    by Molly Beer

    A women-centric view of revolution through the life of Angelica Schuyler Church, Alexander Hamilton's influential sister-in-law.

  • Book Jacket

    The World's Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant
    by Liza Tully

    A great detective's young assistant yearns for glory, but first they have learn to get along in this delightful feel good mystery.

Win This Book
Win These Blue Mountains

These Blue Mountains by Sarah Loudin Thomas

"[An] atmospheric tale of unexpected hope." —Lisa Wingate, New York Times bestselling author

Enter

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

E H L the B

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.