This book is Christian fiction, the setting is the 1960s. I believe the book begins in Colorado with a mother and daughter traveling in a car. They later travel again, I believe to Arizona. They run out of money and end up living and working at a funeral home. In this book the daughter is the "responsible" character. The mother makes poor choices with the men in her life but in the end she turns her life around. The daughter is the main character. The mother and daughter and up returning a stolen car to the long-lost father of the main character.
En route to college in the summer of 1975, sensible seventeen-year-old Amy gets stuck in smalltown Colorado when the 1958 Pontiac Bonneville Sports Coupe driven by her insufferable tiara-toting mom, Francie—former Queen of the Sleepy Eye, Minnesota, Corn Festival—surrenders to a mortally wounded transmission.It doesn’t take long to realize that thirty-three-year-old Franci En route to college in the summer of 1975, sensible seventeen-year-old Amy gets stuck in smalltown Colorado when the 1958 Pontiac Bonneville Sports Coupe driven by her insufferable tiara-toting mom, Francie—former Queen of the Sleepy Eye, Minnesota, Corn Festival—surrenders to a mortally wounded transmission.It doesn’t take long to realize that thirty-three-year-old Francie is out of money and in no hurry to let go of her daughter, so the two unpack indefinitely. Amy finds work at a funeral home, a place where her unlikely Christian faith can work itself out among the town’s young and old, geeks and jocks, hippies and clergy alike.Trying not to judge her mom’s serial boyfriend escapades, Amy ends up in a tragic love triangle herself which gives both mother and daughter the chance to do some real growing up. But in a surprise twist, their road to healing still has many miles to go in 2008 as they travel back to Sleepy Eye in that old ’58 coupe. ...more