Passing Through Paradise

"In Paradise I stumbled onto a dead body,
found my new mother, and was almost murdered."

In the fall of 1989, young Angela Kiln and her father move to the slowly dying town of Paradise. Once they settle into small town life, Angela and her father, a high school teacher, find that the town isn´t the only thing dying — so, apparently, are students. As Angela and her father seek the truth behind the deaths, they will also face the truth about their own deepest beliefs.

Part suspenseful mystery, part sentimental journey, Passing Through Paradise is an alternately funny, gripping, and frightening account of a young girl, her still-grieving father, and a town that refuses to recognize the future. Filled with an unforgettable cast of characters, Passing Through Paradise dramatically reveals the best and worst of human nature, illuminated against a scathing indictment of an American small town.

This new edition of Passing Through Paradise includes a discussion guide for book clubs. Other novels that take place in Schreiber’s Ironwood County include Hillcrest Journal and Life on the Fly.

"Passing through Paradise is tough to put down. The themes are masterfully interwoven."

— Ruth Hanson, Byron Review

" . . . a suspenseful story told with insight, humor, conviction, and compassion."

— Andrew Johanson, Paradise Post, Ironwood County, Minnesota

"Schreiber has a wide range of imagination and the talent to put it into words. . . . His imagination invents word pictures that spark the mind to envision a screen larger than Hollywood is capable of."

– News-Enterprise, December 1, 2004

Helpful Link:

Schreiber has posted some of his published articles, essays, and poems along with book group discussion questions for Passing Through Paradise at John Schreiber´s Books