Only Love Can Break Your Heart

“A lush mystery-within-a-coming-of-age-tale-within-a-Southern-Gothic . . . interesting, readable and beautifully written” (NPR).
Welcome to Spencerville, Virginia, 1977. A time when teenagers roamed wild and free. When sons worshipped God, loved their mothers, and feared their fathers. And when eight-year-old Rocky still worshipped his older brother, Paul—sixteen and full of rebel cool—who was happy to have his younger brother as his sidekick, until one day things went terribly wrong and Paul disappeared.
Seven years later, Rocky, now a teenager himself, must reckon with the past after a mysterious double murder brings terror and suspicion to their small town, and to their broken family.
“Ed Tarkington’s pitch-perfect first novel pays tribute to music, love and growing up in small-town America . . . [It’s] a murder mystery wrapped in the cloak of Southern Gothic charm.” —Chicago Tribune
“An engrossing and surprisingly comfortable read . . . that brings to mind both Harper Lee and Stephen King’s The Body . . . creating a story that is at once bizarre and utterly familiar.” —The Washington Independent Review of Books
“I’ve heard it said that all good fiction is about blood, love or money. If that’s true, then Ed Tarkington has hit the trifecta with his soulful first novel.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Fans of Kathryn Stockett’s The Help will embrace debut author Tarkington’s depiction of Southern life at a time of changing social mores . . . Readers who can’t get enough of Wiley Cash, Ron Rash, and Brian Panowich will delight in discovering this fine new writer.” —Library Journal (starred review)