In an effort to do something about my toppling Mount Doom of backlist books, I am going to read one for every newer release I read. Not sure it will help, but maybe I will luck out and the majority of books languishing on my shelves will be as good as Sweet Dream Baby by Sterling Watson.

In this book, 12-year-old Travis Hollister is sent to Widow Rock, Florida to live with his paternal grandparents and 16-year-old aunt, Delia. It is 1958 and Travis’s father can’t cope. Travis’s mother is convalescing because, as Travis explains, “One day, I came home from school and found Mom curled up under the kitchen sink.” This will be the break everyone needs.

Travis’s grandparents are two sides of a coin: his grandmother is an effusive women, given to retreating to her room with headaches; his grandfather, the town sheriff, is a hard man who demands respect. The real surprise for Travis is his father’s much younger sister, Delia, whose smile “is like a sunrise over the wheat fields back in Omaha.”

Delia takes Travis everywhere and Travis is soon privy to things he doesn’t really understand. Ultimately, it makes this novel more than just the story of one boy’s coming of age. I blame Delia. Delia’s super power is her ability to wrap people, particularly men, around her little finger.

When Travis first meets Delia, he can see the effect she has on her father after she speeds into the garage, music blaring.

Grandpa Hollister’s eyes change. They look like I never expected them to. They say he doesn’t care about the loud radio or the reckless driving. Nobody’s gonna get arrested. They say he can’t do nothing about how he feels right now. Nothing at all.

It seems that every male who comes into Delia’s orbit, from Princeton-bound Bick Sifford, to the the local James Dean wannabe Kenny Griner, wants something from Delia. And soon, Travis wants something from her, too.

Sweet Dream Baby captures the innocence of youth, and the sharp tang of sexual longing and sets it all to the soundtrack of the music of the period. The book doesn’t go where you expect it to and ends up being quite a bit darker, too.

I loved every second of it.