Goodbye Earl

Leesa Cross-Smith, whose earlier novel Half-Blown Rose earned her recognition, takes its title and spirit from the country song made famous by the Dixie Chicks, in which women plot their escape from a cruel husband. The novel follows four close friends, Rosemarie, Ada, Caroline, and Kasey, across two summers fifteen years apart.

In 2004 the four are finishing high school, standing at the edge of everything young people hope for: first loves, careers they want, and the people they are meant to become. Fifteen years later, in 2019, Kasey returns to Goldie, the small Southern town she grew up in, for the first time since graduation. She has never told her friends what really happened that summer or why she left Goldie so suddenly.

The four reunite there for a wedding, and Kasey intends to enjoy simply being together again. When she starts to see signs that one of them may be in danger, the summer she has tried to forget comes rushing back. This time she is determined that the worst moments of her past will not define her, and she knows how to protect the people she loves, whatever it costs.

The book is uplifting and sharp-edged, a story about resilience, the bonds of sisterhood, and the reckoning owed to abusive men who believe they can escape consequences.