End of Nostalgia Road — Cynthia Roepke

1968: Civil Rights riots; assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.; an escalating war in Vietnam nobody wanted... It was a year of strife and violence.

And yet, in Middletown, Minnesota, life flows smoothly on, sheltered from the storms that rage across the nation. Football reigns in the fall. Pumpkin patches dot the fields. Christmas carolers pile into sleighs and go wassailing. Prom is the highlight of spring and high school graduation an event to which the entire town turns out.

Wendy Wade loves her idyllic existence. When Kevin O'Keefe, the Irish foreign exchange student who had a crush on her last year returns, her life is complete. Who could ask for anything more?

But darkness seeps into even good places, like water finding the smallest leak. Strangers move in, including Dwayne Bernard, a troubled youth who's tripped out too many times on LSD. When Wendy befriends him, thinking he's just shy, he decides she is the only person who understands him and he'll do anything to make her his. Any thing.

Will goodness prevail or will Middletown be changed forever?