The Great Depression looms heavy and dark, but beneath its shadow, hope takes root and struggles to bloom.

Indianapolis, 1933. Life has been at a standstill since the 1929 stock market crash crippled the economy, and Mae Lewis is tired of going nowhere. Government officials keep launching recovery programs, but the results are as fickle and unpredictable as a bride who is anxious to set her wedding date. Leo, her dearest darling, is holding fast to a practical path that fails to give notice to the dreams and possibilities that walk beside him every day. Her patience is teetering toward bitterness, and if they wait much longer to say "I do," their picture-perfect future might fall apart.

Leo Coyle's fiancée is in a lather over postponing their nuptials, but a man who is living on the low side of "for richer or poorer" doesn't have any business walking down the matrimonial aisle. They both have jobs, and that's terrific, but working for a company that operates as a democracy is better still. Employee ownership, though, can instigate unrest and uncivilized behavior as easily as it inspires optimism. It's often hard to imagine that Columbia Conserve Company will ever be prosperous again, but Leo's holding onto hope. Joy is just around the corner, and he and Mae will savor it together as soon as the country rights itself again.

At the Crossroads selections are stand-alone novels, each with unique characters and story lines.

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