Ryan's Hand

Leila Meacham was born September 7, 1938 in Minden, Louisiana but grew up in Texas. She graduated from North Texas State University with a bachelor's degree of Arts. She married a pilot in the US Air Force during the war years of Viet Nam and served in numerous capacities of volunteer work as a military wife before resuming her teaching career in San Antonio. She taught high school English until her retirement from that profession, developing the gifted and talented program still used in the tenth-grade curriculum. She was twice elected by her peers as Teacher of the Year.

Leila Meacham came to her love of writing late, even though she dabbled briefly into the process when she wrote a romance novel in the mid-eighties that she never expected to be published. It was followed by two others because she was under contract, but the experience and genre left her with a desire never to pick up a pen again. However, she soon ran out of things to do after retirement and decided to try writing again. Her bestselling novels include Roses (2010), Tumbleweeds (2012) and Somerset (2013) made The New York Times Best Seller List. Her other books included Titans (2016), Ryan's Hand (1984), Crowning Design (1984), and Aly's House (1985). Dragonfly (2019) was her last novel. She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2019 and died on September 19, 2021, at the age of 83.

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