Carla Malden

Shine Until Tomorrow Carla Malden

Social misfit Mari Caldwell desperately wants to get on with her life. If only she could get there faster--specifically to Yale--and leave behind all the things that make her anxious: driving a car, crossing bridges, her peers, her parents' divorce. When Mari comes across an old scrapbook of her mother's, she discovers her white collar parents were once blue denim hippies. She ends up fighting with her mother and storming out. She pedals her bicycle into a downpour, swerves to avoid an oncoming jeep, and flies smack into a tree. Mari climbs into an abandoned VW van bearing the ghost of a psychedelic paint job, and passes out. The next morning, Mari wakes up to the sound of music. But something is wrong; she can't quite figure out what. The skyline, her father's address, the music on the radio. Everything is slightly off. Only when Mari runs headlong into a war protest does Mari begin to realize: it is June, 1967. In the epicenter of the Summer of Love, Mari makes friends with the would-be rock band, meets the grandfather she never knew, and falls in love. In spite of herself, Mari discovers that love changes everything. It even changes her.