Well, with comparisons to Gone With The Wind and Thornbirds floating around this book, I was looking forward to settling in with six-hundred pages of East Texas historical drama–curses, twisted wills, tragic relationships, hard-headed women, alcoholism, financial windfalls and losses, death, births, loves lost and revenge. What’s not to love? This was going to be a return to grand story-telling and, it didn’t disappoint.  With a few swift chapters. I was hooked. Since the book begins with the main character’s death, the story unfolds in flashback and and from the perspectives of the three primary characters; Mary, Percy and Mary’s great niece, Rachel . The “roses” significance to the story (both historically and literally) was beautiful and may launch a whole new angle for the FTD business. I know I won’t look at red, white and pink roses the same way. Until this becomes a movie, which I’m sure it will, I can’t say if its as lasting as GWTW or Thornbirds, because there was little that was singularly unique to Leila Meacham’s tale . This story could have been lifted and reset anywhere, in any culture and it would have resonated with readers–because the conflict is entirely human and ages-old. But that doesn’t mean I can easily forget Mary and Percy and the Scarlett-esque choices women sometimes make to protect the things they love.