Rolling the Tires Back Home

A heartfelt and darkly comic family saga spanning sixty years from New York Times bestselling author Tawni O’Dell.

Journey is a thirty-something chef with a drinking problem, whose only family is her A-list actress mother who casts a long shadow. Stressed and adrift while opening a new restaurant, a mysterious photograph leads Journey to discover that her maternal grandmother had a secret life and a whole different family no one knew about. After a little sleuthing, she discovers she does have another relative: reclusive billionaire Tyson Ryder.

As she gets to know her new uncle, Tyson tells Journey the extraordinary story of his upbringing as one of three devoted siblings raised by a pair of grifters in a world of scams and hustles, on the seedy fringes of the glitz and glamor of 1960s Miami Beach. He also gives her a trove of letters written by his younger sister Rainy, a gifted playwright who died tragically in New York City at the dawn of the AIDS epidemic.

As she pieces together the history of her newfound family, Journey gains new insight into her own life, facing her personal and professional demons, and finding a home she never thought she had.

Rolling the Tires Back Home is a brash, tidal wave of a novel, stinging with honesty and resounding with drama and cutting humor. It’s a slice of Americana reflected in the eyes of its unforgettable characters who push against the grain of the country’s history and their own impulses to survive, succeed, and sometimes live to tell the tale.