Under the Pawpaw Trees - Paperback

Sequel to Sitting on Top of the World

Winner of the 2024 Eric Hoffer Book Award Young Adult Category

June's new normal: Her brother is gone, her dad is gone, her mother is grieving, and June must find her place in the world. Her beau Jimmy is her only tonic. But when tragedy strikes again, she knows exactly who to blame for all her sorrows: Paul Burnett, the railroad bull who started the chain of devastation when he killed her brother.

June sets out on a dangerous journey to make him pay, hopping freight trains to get where she needs to go, and accidents, floods, and attacks plague her route to revenge. Then when she gets to the Burnett farm in Lafayette, Virginia, she learns the truth about what happened to her brother out on the rails, and she's drawn right back into the things that made her fall in love with this place a year ago - including Paul.

Now she must decide where she belongs - with Paul and his family, or back home with Jimmy in Maynardville, where everything she holds dear is there under the pawpaw trees.