First in the Bradleyville Series

A course-changing event in one's life can happen in
minutes. Or it can form slowly, a primitive webbing
splaying into fingers of discontent, a minuscule trail
hardening into the sinewed spine of resentment. So
it was with the mill workers as the heat-soaked days
of summer marched on.

City girl Jessie, orphaned at sixteen, struggles to
adjust to life with her barely known aunt and uncle in
the tiny town of Bradleyville, Kentucky. Eight years later
(1968) she plans on leaving—to following in her revered
mother's footsteps of serving the homeless. But the
peaceful town she's come to love is about to be tragically
shattered. Threats of a labor strike rumble through the
streets, and Jessie's new love and her uncle are swept into
the maelstrom. Caught between the pacifist teachings of her
mother and these two men, Jessie desperately tries to deny
that Bradleyville is rolling toward violence and destruction.