[The Lion Trees 01] • Unraveling

"THE LION TREES" -- WINNER OF THE 2015 KINDLE BOOK AWARD

What if survival required you to unlearn who you are? How far would you fall to save yourself? Sometimes happiness is a long way down.

The Johns family is unraveling. Hollis, a retired Ohio banker, isolates himself in esoteric hobbies and a dangerous flirtation with a colleague’s daughter. Susan, his wife of forty years, risks everything for a second chance at who she might have become. David, their eldest, thrashes to stay afloat as his teaching career capsizes in a storm of accusations involving a missing student and the legacy of Christopher Columbus. And young Tilly, the black sheep, having traded literary promise for an improbable career as a Hollywood starlet, struggles to define herself amid salacious scandal, the demands of a powerful director, and the judgments of an uncompromising writer.

By turns comical and poignant, the Johns family is tumbling toward the discovery that sometimes you have to let go of your identity to find out who you are.

Recognized with awards at 14 international book festivals, including winner of the 2015 Kindle Book Award, winner of the Global eBook Award, winner of the Eric Hoffer Book Award, The First Horizon Award, The Beverly Hills International Book Festival, The London Book Festival, The Great Southeast Book Festival, The Southern California Book Festival, the Great Midwestern Book Festival, The Pacific Rim Book Festival, and the Los Angeles Book Festival.

Highly addictive, spectacular, and mind blowing... Thomas is a wizard of fiction. -- U.S. Review of Books

A sweeping literary saga in the traditional 'Dr. Zhivago', 'Gone with the Wind', and 'The Thord Birds', this book has it all... original and stirring... --The Eric Hoffer Book Award

[A] cerebral page turner...a powerful and promising debut.--Kirkus Reviews

By the time you are done with The Lion Trees, you [will] have forgotten all about the length and will realize what an amazingly entertaining piece of literature it was and do I dare say it, a serious novel that provides you with some genuine laugh out loud moments. ... Owen Thomas's writing leaves you richer with emotions and contentment even before the ending arrives. If there is only one book that you are going to read this year, make it The Lion Trees. - Motorwriter.com

[FIVE STARS]...I've been an avid reader for well over thirty-five years. I've been a reviewer for over a dozen. I've been bombarded by today's cookie cutter story assembly and I despise it. ... Then, someone like Owen Thomas comes along and reminds me what the book world CAN offer, what a story CAN be. ... [T]his was an astounding read for me. Not only was the story telling mesmerizing, but Owen's writing style is inspiring. His writing is seamless and flawless and makes me yearn for more. -- LiteraryLitter.com

[FIVE STARS]...This is a powerful, gripping and realistic story. Once, a few decades ago, many authors would set out to write "The Great American Novel," hoping to tap into whatever it is which makes the US and its people so unique and hopeful, particularly at a set point in time. ... These days it doesn't seem like anyone tries to write those kind of seminal novels anymore... until now. ... The Lion Trees does what so very few great novels can: it will take a lot out of you, but leave you with much more than you had when you began. - Pacific Book Review

[FIVE STARS]...Every now and then, seemingly out of nowhere, a new voice comes along and knocks you socks off. Owen Thomas owns that voice... -- The Anchorage Press

[FIVE STARS]......"This is the sort of novel which a light fiction reader might put down after the first dozen pages, and I’m here to implore that you don’t. Once you get used to the time-hopping, perspective-switching style of Owen Thomas’ deep and beautiful prose, the story of the Johns family flutters like a paper bag in the breeze that you can’t stop watching. Unpredictable, philosophical and deeply, intrinsically human, The Lion Trees explores a lengthy gamut of powerful emotional depths, asking important questions about life which we readers, like the Johns family, so often forget to stop and ponder. A superb and high quality literary drama." Readers' Favorite Book Reviews