Urban Beatz, Inc

South of Broad follows the lives of ten high school students: rich kids, black kids, orphans, transplants, and the son of educators, thrust together by circumstance. Leo King is their ringleader, a role he takes extremely seriously. Leo has wandered through life broken, hopeless, and lonely due to the death of his older brother by suicide.

Legal and mental health troubles cause him to have to make societal amends, and by the end of his "sentence", he has collected a rag-tag group of friends that will be bonded for the rest of their days. These friends bring Leo back to life and give him purpose. Twenty years later, the friendship is tested and they are called upon to find one of their members who is living in San Francisco and dying of AIDS. Add a storyline of a nut-job stalker and you've got high drama.

Conroy successfully creates a tapestry of interwoven story-lines, that occasionally become over the top and require the suspension of disbelief. But he keeps you interested in what happens next (which is what writers are supposed to do) and is even successful at making the city of Charleston a bit player in the book.

If you enjoy stories about southerners, especially those quirky folks from Charleston and the Lowcountry, then Conroy is your man. Check out South of Broad, and don't forget to tell us what you really think.