The Only Way Home

Winner of the 2022 Colorado Authors League First Place Award in Historical Fiction!

Desperate times. Danger on the rails. A journey to save a family.

It is 1933 inside a sweltering courtroom in Macon, Georgia. Fifteen-year-old Robert sits on a bench awaiting sentencing after being picked up for vagrancy and spending a night in jail. He left his home in Illinois with a neighborhood friend to ride the rails and find work to help their families. The friend turned back, too afraid to face the perils ahead. But going back empty-handed isn’t an option for Robert.

The Only Way Home is the story of one boy’s determination to survive loss and hardship to help his family—and how fate and a violin touch the course of his life.

Fans of Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens and Sold on a Monday by Kristina Morris will love this story set during the Great Depression of a fatherless boy fighting to keep his family together.

Awards

The Only Way Home received the Colorado Authors League First Place Gold Award for Historical Fiction, a Second Place Silver CIPA EVVY Award in Literary & Contemporary Fiction, and a Third Place Bronze CIPA EVVY Award in Historical Fiction. Jeanette Minniti also received an Honorable Mention Award from Readers' Favorite in Historical Fiction-Events/Eras.