Elk River won an award for Best Young Adult Fiction from the Bay Area Independent Publishers Association (BAIPA) and was a finalist for a Benjamin Franklin award in LGBT and acknowledgement in YA from the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA). Midwest Book Review says: "Poignant, Elk River is a fine coming of age novel, not to be overlooked.In this debut novel, Gregory C. Randall weaves a tale of secrets in northern Michigan during the hot and stormy summer of 1956. With the constant fear of nuclear war, an exploding Middle East, and memories of World War II still fresh with flowers on soldier's graves, a young man realizes that he is growing up. In Howie Smith's world of primal forests, orderly orchards, and Lake Michigan, he learns about life and begins to understand death. A crazy aunt, a dying uncle, and the unyielding pressure to bring in the demanding crop of cherries, forces Howie to realize there is more to life than baseball.Randall unveils, during this brief summer, a family's fears and triumphs. He explores a region of America left apart from the chaos of the world. It is a place of unwanted migrant pickers, backwoods people who must live off the land, and the grand lake that encloses them all. But Howie discovers it is also a realm of miracles.