“Santo turns home improvement into a metaphor for self-discovery in this well-crafted novel.” —Publisher’s Weekly
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Nearing thirty and trying to avoid the inescapable fact that they have failed to live up to everyone’s expectations and their own aspirations, cousins and childhood best friends Lizzie, Elyse, and Isobel seek respite in an oddly-shaped, three-story house that sits on a bluff sixty feet above the Mississippi.
Told in three parts from the perspective of each of the women, this sharply observed account of the restoration of a house built out of spite, but filled with memories of love is also an account of friendship and how relying on each other’s insights and strengths provides the women a way to get what they need instead of what they want.
“Santo's lush descriptions, rich dialogue, and vivid characters will sweep you away.” — Redbook
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An extraordinary new voice in contemporary woman’s fiction, Courtney Miller Santo makes her magnificent debut with The Roots of the Olive Tree, a novel that will delight fans of Sarah Blake’s The Postmistress, The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, and the works of Kristin Hannah.
Set in a house on an olive grove in northern California, The Roots of the Olive Tree is a beautiful, touching story that brings to life five generations of women—including an unforgettable 112-year-old matriarch determined to break all Guinness longevity records—the secrets and lies that divide them and the love that ultimately ties them together.
“We see a parent doing her best to guide her children through the dangers of Covid-19, isolation perhaps chief among them.” C. Hodgen, New Letters
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At a horse ranch in Georgia, the author comes to term with how her father’s obsession with the end of the world effcted her childhood, and how she parents her own children.