Foundry Street — John M. Sharpe

Set at the close of WWII, Foundry Street evokes the hopes, fears, and emotions of a small Canadian town waiting and praying for the end of a distant, interminable war; where Brett Shannon and his best friend, Marty Winslow, cope with stirring teen-age passions and listless days by indulging in sexual fantasies about -- and with -- Ellie Legere, a fiery, uninhibited woman-child from lower Foundry Street, the slag heap of the town's poor.

The tangled relationships of Foundry Street range from the brutal to the tender: from rape, incest, and extortion to fidelity, redemption, and true love; and tell of the innocence of youth lost forever as Marty escapes a tyrannical father, while Ellie is freed from a life of degradation as she and Brett find true love.

Sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes gloriously uplifting, Foundry Street is a window to the past: a snapshot of small-town Canada in an era long gone.