Buckeye (Pre-order September 2, 2025)

Buckeye by Patrick Ryan (Pre-order September 2, 2025)

One town. Two families. A secret that changes everything.

“A small-town novel of epic proportions” (Tom Perrotta), Buckeye is a luminous, multigenerational story of love, betrayal, and the ties that bind us across time.

In Bonhomie, Ohio, a single stolen moment in the jubilant aftermath of World War II entwines the fates of two families forever. Cal Jenkins, scarred not by combat but by his failure to serve, finds himself drawn to Margaret Salt, a woman desperate to outrun her past. Their spouses—Cal’s devout wife Becky, blessed and burdened with the gift of speaking to the dead, and Margaret’s husband Felix, far from danger on a Navy cargo ship—anchor them in a world of faith and duty. Until one telegram changes everything.

As the decades unfold and America reshapes itself in the wake of postwar boom and social upheaval, the secret born that summer refuses to remain buried. The Jenkins and Salt families are forced to reckon with the truths that ripple across generations, challenging who they thought they were and what legacies they will leave behind.

Both sweeping and intimate, Buckeye is rich with tenderness, piercing insight, and a profound understanding of the human spirit. It is a story about the yearning for love, the weight of history, and the fragile hope of redemption.