Go west, young man! The magic of the American West captured young Earl Norris during high school and held him hostage all his life. As pastor of a tiny church in the small town of Saline in eastern Montana, he found himself a world away–in more ways than one-- from his earlier life in Chicago. How would he deal with the perplexing differences? Having grown up in an urban environment with over four million people, he now lived in a town with a population of less than five hundred, and in a state with only about seven hundred thousand. Earl had gone west alone because his high school sweetheart, Lynn Ellerton, who could not accept the idea of becoming the wife of a pastor, had broken their engagement. Will he remain a bachelor? Could he ever re-connect with Lynn? Or will there be someone eligible in Saline, Montana? Will his detractors-- the morning coffee crowd at the local gas station-- force him out with their whispered suspicions? Might he find work further west? With declining population, what of the survival of the Saline church? Meanwhile what happened to Lynn? Did she settle for a job in her father’s company in Chicago? Her story is even more surprising than Earl’s. Westbound leads the reader through many a twist and turn in the lives of these two high school sweethearts, Earl and Lynn. Their stories will take the reader north to Alaska, west to California, and south to New Zealand as well as across the Atlantic to London in a tale of triumph and tragedy, tenderness and love.