Judith Ormand learned hate and bigotry early in life. As a child, she was the only Black - and the only Jew - in a small insular Pennsylvania mountain village where she was raised by her white Christian grandparents. Now, she must reluctantly break her vow to never return to the town she learned to hate. During her one week visit, she buries and mourns her beloved grandmother, is forced to deal with the white boy who cruelly broke her heart, and is menaced by an old enemy. But with her traumatic discovery of a longburied secret, Judith finds more questions than answers about the prejudice that scarred her childhood. Jo Joe is a mystery of the heart that takes the reader through a journey of twisted memories, distorted love, and hate that threatens violence. ABOUT BLACK BEAR, PENNSYLVANIA "Jo Joe" is set in the fictional Pocono Mountains village of Black Bear, Pennsylvania. Black Bear was created as a literary “folie à deux” by Sally Wiener Grotta and Daniel Grotta. Both are dipping into the same pool of invented locale and characters to write a series of separate stories and novels that will, eventually, paint a full picture of the diversity of life and relationships in a small mountain village. The first Black Bear story was "Honor," a novella by Daniel Grotta.