Penny Candy Dreams
by Margaret Johnson-Hodge

For Paige Andrea Montgomery, growing up had been much like her favorite childhood candy Smarties— sour and sweet. A teenager as the story opens, her world is a Merry-Go-Round of peaks and valleys, highs and lows, full of old wounds in need of healing and new joys in need of finding.

She’d learned early to put one foot in front of the other, pressing on towards a better life. Sometimes she aces it, sometimes she doesn’t. A long-ago promise she’s carries like a found pebble nestled deep inside a summer jean pocket has carried her through, but will it be enough as she enters the next stages of her life—adulthood?