Where life is more than a game.
Brock Gallagher hands in his resignation and loses his chance to win a state championship as head football coach at one of Seattle’s largest high schools to fulfill a promise to his mother back in his tiny hometown of Glory Grove. He plans on staying only long enough to be with his mom during her final days. When he arrives in the Grove, he is met with bitterness and violence from Cort Jepson, a former teammate, now married to Brock’s high school sweetheart. Excited about his arrival are local citizens of the town who dream of a return to better times, including the days of football supremacy.
Although determined to stay away from the game and any involvement with the people in Glory Grove, Brock finds himself drawn into the local scene when the current football coach is forced to leave town. Standing in Brock’s way is a high school principal determined to kill the sport.
While focused on football, Brock risks losing his beautiful big-city wife, who has drifted away from him into a world of high art, celebrities, and drugs. Brock feels the tug of conflicting loyalties. Will he recommit to his marriage and return to the city or stay in the Grove and a place to call home?
2024 American Fiction Awards – Best Sports Fiction
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The much awaited sequel to “Glory Grove”
Brock Gallagher is troubled as he returns to Glory Grove. His marriage has fallen apart. His mother is dying and a multinational energy corporation is tempting area families with a promise of easy money for leases on their land to build a giant wind farm. It pits neighbors against one another, escalating to acts of violence.
Amid the turmoil, Brock rekindles a relationship with Ronnie Jepson, his beautiful high school sweetheart, while agreeing to help hapless coach Buster McHue turn the Grizzlies’ basket ball team around. Their efforts are threatened by the arrogant banker, Roland Donigan, who plots to sabotage the team as a way to steal Ronnie away from Brock.
Brock has always been a winner in sports. But his personal strength is also his defining weakness… an insatiable desire to win at everything he does. He now faces his biggest challenge; can he learn to win beyond the scoreboard?
Winds of Glory is the gorgeous follow-up to Gary Bye’s award-winning debut novel Glory Grove. Bye returns to the fictional small town and its people in this moving exploration of conflict and connections, with a healthy dose of the novelist’s signature strengths – dry humor and the excitement of high school sports.
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