James Carlson Lake

Meet Roy Held in this beautiful coming of age novel set in the hectic wartime era of 1917. As a student at Indiana University, Roy and his fellow classmates face the challenges of family, career, romance, and the imminent threat of military service as the United States joins World War I. Roy encounters the love of his life, Pearl Hoffman. But looming danger of war overseas and a much closer draw of a femme fatale, Rose of Sharon, push him to face choices that shape his destiny, defining his character. Meanwhile, Pearl is thrust into establishing herself in a male-dominated career as she waits for Roy to come home; she must fight to make her way as a strong-willed, smart “modern" in the pre- women’s suffrage epoch. This story captures rollicking university life, tender love, the brutality of war, espionage, French and American history including a Pottawatomie sage in this clever and sweeping story of one man’s struggle to find himself.