Where the River Ebbs is the story of young Owen and Luke, exploring the outdoors on Sunday afternoons in the rural south. Told from the perspective of 12-year-old Owen, it opens with his attempt to prove his mettle and wisdom to his friend Luke by his nervy attempt to pick grapes, standing on an old bullet-ridden car with a nest of angry hornets inside. Subsequent chapters narrate Owen and Luke’s back-stories, their adventures outdoors, and the church-centered community’s slower ways of the south. Frequently, Owen, the less rural and more insecure of the two, tries to grow up a bit too fast, sometimes tripping over his own wild notions of how things ought to be done, and trying to prove his worth to the wise and woodsy Luke. A mysterious theft from the church gives Owen a reason to demonstrate his skills of deduction. But he wrongly assumes Cato is the thief, the only “different” and strange new adult male in the community. In the end, sorting through clues, experiencing a dramatic reversal, and guided by the wisdom of others, Owen learns the biblical lesson of not judging a book, or a Samaritan, by its cover.