Small Town Roads is kind, gentle, poetic, but grippingly bittersweet in the meeting and meshing of the times and values of two distinctly different -- but so much the same -- women in a small American town. L.B. Johnson is a writer to watch for tomorrow, but she is also someone to enjoy today".
-- John L. Moore
Award-winning novelist and journalist, author of The Breaking of Ezra Riley and other novels.
"In the tradition of Kent Haruf's bestselling Plainsong, L.B. Johnson has written a lyrical, meditative story that acknowledges the dangers and comforts of our world. Small Town Roads is a loving story about an old, slow place where the terrible loneliness of grief eases because ordinary people decide to be community."
-- Katie Andraski
Author of The River Caught Sunlight
Small Town Roads, the latest novel by award-winning Author L.B. Johnson, accurately depicts the feeling of small town life, where neighbors know each others' names and become friends for a lifetime.
Evelyn Ahlgren, a widow, and retired schoolteacher enjoys the comforts of her little home and her surrounding neighborhood. That's why she is intrigued to see what her new neighbor, a young woman named Rachel Raines, will add to their small town.
Rachel has just left the city with a Criminal Justice degree. She had thought she wanted a carefree city life, not a job as a rookie cop in a town whose only restaurant has a life-sized plastic cow on the roof.
Sometimes God has other plans for us.
Evelyn befriends her young neighbor, finding out she has endured a lot of grief for one so young, that sorrow taking her on a directionless path instead of one lit by the Holy Spirit. As heart-breaking as that is to see, Evelyn believes that God brought the two together to find renewed purposes in His Will, and the two begin an unlikely friendship that surpasses age, knowledge, and life experiences.
When Rachel is caught up in an unexpected act of violence while out on patrol, her whole life changes, as does her look at her future and her faith.
Small Town Roads effortlessly captures the unique perspective that small towns bestow on those who live there. Mrs. Johnson shows that the confines of a small town can contain a healing spirit that can soothe the difficulties of the past while providing hope in God for tomorrow's future.
