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It's 1975 and the world is in the midst of the Sexual Revolution. Except not in Weaver Falls, where seventeen-year-old Jocelyn's boyfriend Benny is wrestles with guilt over their passionate lovemaking in the woods. When Benny tells her he has bargained with God to swap their relationship in exchange for his dying mother's life, and that popular Father Warren has counseled him that Jocelyn is of th... More

It's 1975 and the world is in the midst of the Sexual Revolution. Except not in Weaver Falls, where seventeen-year-old Jocelyn's boyfriend Benny is wrestles with guilt over their passionate lovemaking in the woods. When Benny tells her he has bargained with God to swap their relationship in exchange for his dying mother's life, and that popular Father Warren has counseled him that Jocelyn is of the devil, she feels that her soul is stained -- not a new emotion for her. Although as a small child she perceived the sunlit colors of the stained glass windows in St. Mary's as God's blessing, her mother's divorce ten years ago has estranged both of them from the Catholic church and Jocelyn from the other kids at school. The relentless teasing all through her childhood of her same-age next-door neighbor Gabe has left her feeling even more rejected.

But now Gabe is missing, and the whole town turns out to search for him day after day, as his parents grieve, and Benny and Jocelyn's breakup drags on agonizingly in the background. In alternate chapters, episodes show Gabe's wild antics as a child, and his cruel tricks then despite Jocelyn's devotion to him. After a near-rape when she was twelve, Jocelyn has kept her distance from Gabe, but now she can still draw on that invisible cord that used to bind them to follow clues to his whereabouts and try to comfort his shame that he has succumbed to Father Warren's sexual demands.

Jennifer Richard Jacobson has built a story that treads delicately around a sensitive contemporary issue and explores first love and na�ve belief with convincing characters. (Ages 14 and up) --Patty Campbell

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