She's Gone

It's 1969. Jolie stands on the deck of her parents' Santa Barbara home watching an uncontrolled oil spill. She's outraged and motivated to do something about it. Jolie's father may be an oil executive, but that doesn't stop her from hitchhiking to the harbor and joining an anti-oil drilling protest.

When a television broadcast shows her protesting, Jolie's father prohibits any more involvement. This fuels the fire burning inside of her, and she flees home with Will, her older, activist boyfriend. Idealistic and ready for anything, Jolie follows Will and his big promises into the sixties' cultural revolution to create a better society.

Thrown into an adult world, Jolie lies about her age and identity and quickly discovers that nearly everything is more complicated than it seems on the surface-Will included. In this psychological love story, Jolie's emotional journey from California to the East Coast, is one of pain, resilience, fear, and hope, as she navigates an increasingly controlling boyfriend and her own personal convictions.

Filled with colorful settings, characters, and the music of the times, She's Gone is an authentic and heartfelt story of self-discovery that follows a young woman's spiritual odyssey through the domestic unrest of the Vietnam War, the start of the environmental movement, and the Women's Liberation Movement. Many of the social and political issues continue to be relevant today.

"Joye Emmens deftly explores the political landscape of 1960s America...Emmens' descriptions of the historical topography...greatly elevates the story's engaging veracity. She's Gone, besides being an entertaining exposition into the counterculture that reigned in America's mid-twentieth century, is a captivating tale of a girl's adventuresome transition into womanhood." -Readers Favorite 5 Star Review
"She's Gone is an excellent story of a young woman who struggles to find her identity in the midst of chaotic times. An excellent book that keeps the reader turning pages until the last chapter. Highly recommended." -San Francisco Book Review
"Imagine On the Road set more than a decade later, featuring a female protagonist who vividly comes to life, and whose travels and travails are like the music that sings off the novel's pages...She's Gone is a fine read, a book filled with many pleasures." -Russell Martin, author of Beethoven's Hair