The Story Behind
The Unpublished Novel
Thirty years later, You Had to Know Winona reaches readers for the first time.
THE STORY BEHIND THE UNPUBLISHED NOVEL
For over thirty years, this story waited in a box.
Long before Roses made Leila Meacham a multiple-time New York Times bestselling author, and long before the Huffington Post called her a “national treasure,” she was a Texas schoolteacher with a natural gift for storytelling.
In the mid-1980s, Leila published three well-received romance novels with Walker Publishing. Writing under contract taught her that deadlines stifled her creativity, so once she had fulfilled her obligations, she returned to the classroom.
She worked on a stories for herself, at her own pace during the mid-1980s into the mid-1990s. One being a murder mystery set in a small Texas Panhandle town. When it was finally finished, she sent query letters to literary agents. When none came through, she tucked the manuscript away, vowing never to write again.
And there it stayed.
It wasn’t until after she retired from teaching, restless and with time on her hands, that Leila picked up her pen once more at sixty five years of age, and that return led to Roses.
After Leila’s passing in 2021, her cousin, Dr. Melanie Ross Mills, who had promised Leila she would “be her voice” and carry her stories forward, reached out to Janice Thomson to learn more about the forgotten book. Janice and Leila were best friends for nearly fifty years, and in the 80’s and 90’s, the two of them talked through this very story together. When Melanie asked whether she would help bring the manuscript to life once more, Janice said yes.
Now, three decades later, You Had to Know Winona reaches readers for the very first time. This never-before-published novel offers a rare glimpse of a master storyteller in the making, with the authentic voice and signature pacing her readers would come to love.
THE CAST OF CHARACTERS
Meet the Characters
Get to know the people at the heart of You Had to Know Winona, and the ties that bind their stories together.
TITLE CHARACTER
Winona
Plain-faced, sharp-tongued and dressed in a frumpy gray suit and scuffed brown oxfords, Kersey High’s English department chair is the most powerful woman in town. As trustee of her late father’s oil fortune, she decides which businesses, churches and schools get money, and she never lets anyone forget it. Nearly everyone in Kersey fears or resents her, yet she’s the one who pulls a stranger from a snowbound ditch and saves her life. As Gina soon learns, you’d have to know Winona to understand her.
CHARACTER ROLE
Gina
Blonde, polished and newly divorced, Gina flees Miami society after her husband leaves her for another woman. She drives her little red Mercedes toward the Texas she’s loved since childhood in westerns, and lands in a snowbound ditch outside Kersey. A former high school English teacher with a sharp eye and a soft heart, she takes over a classroom no one else will touch. Gina has sworn she’ll never trust another man, but in Kersey she’ll have to learn whom to trust, and fast.
Sheriff Wyn
Tall, dark-haired and drop-dead handsome beneath his western hat, Kersey’s county sheriff is the hero who pulls Gina from a snowbound ditch on the night she arrives. He grew up on Winona Harding’s Rocking H ranch, and she treats him like family. He’s charming, confident and the town’s most eligible bachelor, with a wink for every pretty woman. Everyone in Kersey trusts Wyn, and Gina is the one person who can’t decide whether she should.
Eleanor
Sixty-five, gray-haired and “built like good furniture,” Eleanor is Kersey’s school board president and the warmest kitchen in town. A widow with a strong Texas drawl and no filter, she takes in a heartbroken stranger from Miami with beef stew, cornbread and a glass of red wine. She’s one of the few people Winona Harding respects, and one of the few who will defend her. “Winona’s got a nasty nature,” Eleanor insists, “but her character’s beyond reproach.”
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Leila's Research Notes
Every story begins long before the first page. Here are some of Leila's research notecards that helped explore the characters, places, plot lines, mysteries, and questions that shaped the novel, offering readers a deeper look into how the story came to be.
