Colony Girl

the long version

"Outside Arhat, Iowa (population 8,000), there are cornfields and there is the Colony, a small Christian community whose inhabitants are willing themselves back to biblical times. Precocious, 15-year-old Eve is a Colony girl, but she's too smart and impatient to stay put. Along with her friends, she is reaching that age where the future looms and Town beckons. She gets a job on the local highway crew as a flagman, falls in love with both Joey, the local teen Adonis, and Herbert, his portly, tortured, middle-aged dad."--BOOK JACKET. "Meanwhile, the Colony is in disarray. Gordon, its charismatic and creepy founder, has been acting strange lately...strange even for a cult leader. He is holed up in his house watching 24-hour cable, ignoring his flock, and drinking grain alcohol. Now the bizarre marriage he has arranged for Eve's best friend has the Colony elders up in arms."--BOOK JACKET. "As Colony Girl races to an unexpected climax, bold Eve finds herself trying to save the Colony even as she struggles to escape its grasp."--BOOK JACKET.