Title: Passing Through Paradise
Description: "In Paradise I stumbled onto a dead body, found my new mother, and was almost murdered."

Young Angela Kiln and her father move to the slowly dying town of Paradise. Once they settle into small town life and get to know the residents, Angela and her father, a high school teacher, find that the town isn’t the only thing that’s dying—so apparently, are the students.

"Tough to put down. The themes are masterfully interwoven." -- Byron Review


Passing Through Paradise is an alternately funny, suspenseful, sentimental, and chilling account of a young girl, her still-grieving father, and a town that refuses to recognize the future. Like the author’s "Hillcrest Journal," this novel of small town America explores how we deal with change, our real convictions, and, ultimately, the power of forgiveness and love.
Subjects: mystery, spiritual, Ironwood County, father daughter relationship, Minnesota, suspense, midwest, coping with grief
Places: Ironwood County, Minnesota, Owatonna
Time periods: late 1990s (and late 1980s in flashback)