Foothold: Rigsby WI by S.E. Case

It's 2002 in rural Rigsby, Wisconsin, and Bethany, searching for stability and an escape from her oppressive family, finds solace in new high school friends. But everyone is struggling beneath the town's idyllic surface, and everything is about to change.

Rigsby, Wisconsin: It's just another nowhere town, but Bethany has finally found some stability here, far from the baleful, watching eyes of her oppressively disapproving mother. Jeordie and Erik are welcoming new friends, and even Anna seems happy to make her feel at home, despite hints of issues even bigger than hers.

Amid the placid, scenic small-town beauty, the teens of Rigsby are roiling with struggles over what might come next, where to turn, and what's standing in their way. And when Bethany and Anna decide to go to the Homecoming dance together, the threads start to unravel.

SE Case's painfully beautiful Rigsby WI saga is a bracing, refreshingly genuine tale of life on the cusp of something new. And it all starts here.

SE Case is an illustrator and graphic designer who lives in Minnesota with her husband, daughter, and dog. Rigsby WI is inspired in part by the people she has met and places she has lived in the upper Midwest, including the Wisconsin Northwoods and Driftless areas.