Jodi Lea Stewart

Blackberry Road Jodi Lea Stewart

Thirteen-year-old Biddy Woodson has learned how to sass and vinegar her way through life with eleven siblings in a sharecropper family in 1934 Oklahoma--even if it takes a heap of cussing to get through those hellish stacks of after-meal dishes.

Trouble sneaks in one afternoon like an oily Dustbowl twister when a beloved neighbor is murdered, and a single piece of evidence sends the sheriff to arrest Mr. Leroy, a black man who lives in the nearby woods.

Biddy knows Mr. Leroy wouldn't hurt a fly, and she's convinced the sheriff looks down on sharecroppers and negroes. Trouble rides heavy on the summer air with family issues and Mr. Leroy's predicament. How can Biddy see justice done for the gentle man she knows is innocent?

Hauntingly terrifying sounds seeping from the woods lead Biddy into even deeper mysteries and despair, and finally, into the shocking truths of that fateful summer. Though Biddy vows to see Mr. Leroy freed, she's up against more than she bargained for. Help comes from an unlikely source, but can life ever be the same on BLACKBERRY ROAD?