Ruth Rodgers

Tug of War Ruth Rodgers

During the turbulent year of 1970, 21-year-old college senior Sarah Baker faces a decision that will test her identity and determine her future. Two months before graduation, when she gets word that her long-term boyfriend, Randy Hughes, after many months of rehab in an Army hospital, is finally coming home, she is exhilarated at the news. Her trip home for spring break will be the first time she has seen him since he lost a leg from a land mine in Vietnam, and she is determined to reassure him that nothing has changed between them. She feels ready to help him deal with the anger and depression of his loss, but she is not prepared for the feelings she is beginning to develop for Blake Scott, editor of the college newspaper and crusading antiwar activist whose beliefs about the war are antithetical to everything Randy believes in. When four students are shot at Kent State two weeks before graduation, Sarah must reconsider not only her feelings about the war but her choices about the future. Honor dictates that she keep the promise she made to Randy before he left for Vietnam, but her heart and mind increasingly draw her in another direction. As she graduates from college and begins the job of her dreams at the soon-to-open Disney World, her years-old goal of marriage to Randy seems more a dreaded obligation than a joyfully anticipated event, and when Blake, now a reporter for The Miami Herald, reappears in her life, Sarah is faced with a painful dilemma. Will she remain loyal to Randy, who has given up so much for his country, or will she acknowledge that she is no longer the person she was in high school and give herself permission to move beyond that years-old promise?