“The characters in The Tenderest of Strings are as vivid and real as people we know in life . . . and just as captivating and mysterious. I WAS ENTHRALLED.”
—Ann Packer, author of The Dive From Clausen’s Pier
Praise
“Fast-paced, unpredictable, and thoroughly absorbing, this is a beautiful and touching story of an American family, who, in a fractured, confusing world, try to remember how to be loyal, and how to love.”
—Ann Cummins, author of Yellowcake
“The Tenderest Strings is at once a superbly compelling page-turner and a subtle, complex investigation—make that celebration—of the ties that bind.”
—Robert Cohen, author of Amateur Barbarians
“This is a remarkable novel, wise, well-written, and evocative.”
—Larry Watson, author of Let Him Go
“An empathetic and beautiful story.”
—Peter Orner, author of Maggie Brown & Others
ON SALE JANUARY 4, 2022
In search of a new life, Reuben and Ardith Rosenfeld and their two children move from Chicago to the small town of Welton, Colorado, looking for all the hope that the burgeoning West has to offer—its abundance of jobs, space, sunshine, prosperity, and the promise of reinvention. Reuben, a former copyeditor at the Chicago Tribune, purchases the local town paper, the Welton Sentinel. Ardith stays home and copes with the task of fixing up an older house, which suffers such disrepair that on Halloween it's mistaken for part of a haunted house tour. Teenaged Harry continues his life as a troubled loner, skipping school and losing his tooth in a mysterious encounter. Meanwhile, Reuben, unaware that Ardith is having an affair, worries about his wife's growing unhappiness and distance from the family. One night, after a cookout at some friends' dairy farm, a fatal hit-and-run occurs that shocks the community, exposes a secret, and begins to rip apart the Rosenfeld family. The Tenderest of Strings is a riveting, full-hearted story of what it takes to survive as a family in a small Western town that beckons from afar but will put its newcomers to the test of their lives.