I voted for The Summer That Melted Everything to win every literary prize in 2016. I will be right there shouting from the rooftops that I loved this book. Please be aware that while I call this book beautiful in so many ways, dark things happen to and within this family. That is not what this book is about. Powerful, emotional, beautifully descriptive and haunting, I will never forget Betty, her indelible story, or the way she shared it through her daughter’s masterful skill. McDaniel: Especially to a child, seeing your father beaten up is quite a blow. You see that, even though you love him and see him as perfect and invincible, society and the community see something different. But I definitely wanted to portray an admiring relationship between father and daughter. The thing that I learned the most in my interviews with Mom and her siblings was how much they loved their father, and how he was a supportive force in their lives. When he died, they spoke as though they lost the only life raft in the middle of the ocean. He was such a force to them, and the loss of him was so great. Tiffany McDaniel takes her time here as she paints us a vivid picture of the stories Landan shares with Betty and his ways. The story is rich in the everyday life of the characters that is as bold as it is normal. At times it did feel a bit much for me, making the book feel longer than it needed to be and at times, I lost some focus. McDaniel doesn’t really know herself: “Oh, Sal is a mystery even to me. He’s a contradiction, an old soul in a young body. I have my theories, but I don’t want to spoil it. There are some certainties about where he’s come from and who he is, so I think there is a point somewhere where those two identities merge.” When I was a mere 5% into this book, I fretted about not wanting it to end. This book is THAT good. The characters are living, breathing, loving, and endearing. They go through the darkest and most unsettling of times, and I was with them for every bit of this journey I never wanted to end.

It was a long road for McDaniel – she wrote her first novel at 18, but was 25 before she had an agent and only several years later did a manuscript start going out to publishers: “It was terrible, because editors would say, ‘Oh I loved it’ and after all this wonderful, long stuff they’d say ‘but I’m not going to take it’.” They seemed astounded that she hadn’t been through an MFA program. “I didn’t even know that was a conversation people were having!” she says. After accepting that the first book she wrote would not be the first published, she returned to her bedroom and wrote eight more novels in around two years, with The Summer That Melted Everything the favourite in that batch. Betty is woven of many things, light and dark, and most of all it is life in all its shades: all its brilliances and disappointments, sadnesses and hopes. Vivid and lucid, Betty has stayed with me.' - Kiran Millwood Hargrave, author of The MerciesMcDaniel has created something special here. Characters that evoked emotions, We have it all here. Coming-of-age, grief, trauma, abuse. We get to see how the world around these characters causes such pain, but unlike novels that focus on a small chunk of time, we get to see how these small ripples from a specific day, form into waves over a lifetime. When you read one of her books, now that I have two under my belt, I can say this with absolute certainty, the reader knows she has something special in her hands. Books don’t come written like this every day. Storytelling isn’t always this memorable. And you know all know I love books and authors, so at the heart of what I am saying is I absolutely adored this book. It’s THE book. My book of summer. When I was a kid, I was often by the side of my grandmother, Mamaw Alka. As a child, it was difficult to understand how one minute she could be loving and kind, while the next she could be distant and hard to reach. Once I learned about the abuse she experienced, I understood how it shaped her into the woman she was. Magical and moving Cherokee myths & legends: deeply touching tales a father, (Landon), passes on to Betty... I remember the fierce love and devotion as much as I remember the violence." "our family tree grew with rotten, broken branches and fungus on the leaves."

Tiffany McDaniel: When I was 17 years old, my mother told me a secret. It was the type of secret that most families keep hidden. It opened the door on other family secrets, and I realized there was a lot I didn’t know. The secrets of the women in the family were all eye-opening lessons on another part of our history—the generational abuse. After that, I talked to my mom, my grandmother, and the other women in the family, digging deeper into those secrets to give them shape. It is interesting, exploring your own family history. I knew these people, and yet there are so many things I hadn’t known. It goes to show you how important it is for us to listen to our elders and to hear about their experiences.I spoke to McDaniel earlier this summer, shortly before her book’s publication, about Cherokee culture, intergenerational abuse, and why we should love one another more. This novel is inspired by my mother Betty’s life and I couldn’t have asked to be raised by a better woman. I am inspired daily by her intelligence, her creativity, her determination, and her strength. The poem ‘My Broken Home,’ at the beginning of the novel, was written by her. And when I read the lines, ‘you give me a wall / and I’ll give you hole,’ I understood that she was finally breaking down the walls and freeing everything behind them. Mom is so thrilled to see the book out on the shelf. And to all you readers, she thanks you dearly for reading this story. I hope in these photos you see not only her beauty on the outside, but her beauty within. May Bettythe novel and Betty the person inspire and empower girls like her to dare to dream and never give up. Trigger warning: this book talks about racism, have graphic scenes about bullying and violence, talks about child loss, abuse, suicide, and also has homophobic lines that are part of the story.

Stephanie Powell Watts, bestselling author of N o One Is Coming to Save Usand We Are Taking Only What We Need It’s hanging’ in there from a sweet little string. Within the glass is the bird God caught all the way up in heaven.’ This novel broke my brain. The lush, hypnotic prose, the voice, so authentic and compelling, as Betty Carpenter holds your hand and leads you through a world filled with familial tragedy. Each more haunting than the last, until you’re left holding your breath, with a tourniquet on your heart. This is powerful, relentless storytelling at its best.” There is a level of emotional pain that I find almost unbearable—usually evoked by stories of animal or child abuse. The only remedy for me, other than shutting down completely, is vacuuming. Suffice it to say that the experience reading Betty left me with the cleanest carpet and wood floor I've ever had.

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A heartbreaking yet magical story, Betty is a punch-in-the-gut of a novel - full of the crushing cruelty of human nature and the redemptive power of words. Tiffany McDaniel has given us a vivid and haunting portrait of the writer as a young girl. Betty Carpenter survives the brutality of her childhood through her father's stories and his steadfast belief in her own. A novel of tragedy and trouble, poetry and power, not a story you will soon forget." The last thing I want to praise is McDaniel's voice. Her style is lyrical and beautiful, but also very forward. I wanted to merge my myths with Papaw’s,” McDaniel said. “It’s through story that I feel most connected to him.” Landon (both real and fictional) tells stories to strengthen his family; McDaniel wrote “Betty” to honor hers. The women of this book are clever and witchy, speaking in a poetic cadence they have created together… McDaniel is exceptionally inventive… McDaniel’s sentences are often striking, ethereal and transcendent…an undeniable sense of wonder.McDaniel pulls off an impressive twist at the finale, with a plot shift that might inspire you to start the book again if your nervous system can handle it. And of course, the killer is not the point. We read for the women, the dismal yet beatific textures of their lives. Stories about murdered women always fall on the savage side, but beneath that, too, is the pulse of something beautiful.”

The novel follows the eponymous Betty, the third daughter (and fourth child) of the Carpenter family. Betty grows up in Breathed with her 5 siblings in a house from which the previous family disappeared, missing and presumed murdered due to the bullet holes found in the walls. Betty's father is Cherokee, her mother white, yet she is the only child with her father's dark hair and complexion. As a result Betty is the victim of merciless racism from kids at school, townspeople and even her own siblings. The bulk of the plot is made up of telling the story of Betty's life between the ages of 6/7 to 15, weaved together with tales of her siblings and their fates. this book is sad. it is SAD. it is beautiful and broken and filled with tenderness and love and cruelty and neglect and it is SEARING. i cannot emphasize enough that, like life, it is a mixture of sad and lovely. although, also like life, for every sad you see coming, there’ll be two that’ll catch you off guard. Stunning…It’s a striking portrayal of women fighting for their lives, and one readers won’t soon forget.” On the Savage Side is gorgeously written. If you are looking for humor or hope then this is not the book for you. It’s gritty and dark and we feel for these lost souls. This must have been a difficult book to write. But it really had to be written.” Inspired by the unsolved murders of the Chillicothe Six, this hypnotic novel tells the story of two sisters in rural Ohio facing a legacy of guilt and devastating family secrets. From the internationally bestselling author of Betty and The Summer that Melted Everything.Alka and Landon have eight children: Leland, Fraya, Yarrow, Waconda, Flossie, Betty, Trustin and Lint. Yarrow and Waconda died before they were two. Betty’s story is centered around her and her sisters Fraya and Flossie. They father told her: