Lois Paige

Growing up is never easy, but with friends by your side, anything seems possible. Josephina Wolohan is seven years old when her father dies. Her world is turned upside down and she needs a friend. She finds not one, but three solid, true, loyal, mischievous, funny friends. Maggie, Cat, and Mikey Ann stand by her through thick and thin. They help her through all the bad times, create the good times, and get her into plenty of trouble.
They help her grow up. Going between the past and the present, when Josephina is 14 and her mother is in the hospital in a coma from a boating accident. Welcome to Butte, Montana, in the 1960s-a mile-high copper mining town nestled in the Rocky Mountains, next to the Continental Divide. Known proudly as Butte, America, this rugged and rowdy town is a maze of mines, churches, and bars that eats, breathes, and belches copper.
When her father unexpectedly dies, she's left with her mother Lilly, who struggles with grief while managing the apartment house her husband left as their sole income. Jo's childhood fills with the uncertainty of mining strikes, stale bread, and empty cupboards. The Kennedys rise and fall, America races Russia to the moon, and rebellion brews in the young like a frothy Butte beer. Now a grieving single parent, Jo's mom retreats into herself, leaving her daughter to navigate life's growing pains on her own.
Jo turns to her three closest friends-Maggie, Cat, and Mikey Ann, and the mischievous foursome dub themselves the Clover Girls. proving their friendship is a safe refuge in a crazy, chaotic world. Through fourteen-year-old Jo's eyes, we see how loyal friends help her navigate loss in a town as tough and tender as she is. Jo and her friends reveal the strength that lies within each of us-a tribute to the resilience of the human spirit.