Queen Book Tour Reading @ Vancouver Public Library

PA220017_Fotor1 — **Super excited to be reading at #VPL with Eileen Kernaghan**

Heroines of Young Adult Fiction with Mix Hart & Eileen Kernaghan

I had the hour of reading at the Vancouver Public Library (VPL—Main Branch) with author Eileen Kernaghan. I read from my debut novel Queen Of The Godforsaken and Eileen read from her latest novel Sophie In Shadow.

Our novels are quite different, yet share teenage, female protagonists who are thrust into new lives, living in foreign new landscapes.

PA220019_Fotor1 — **Putting on my “author” boots…**

Eileen and I came up with the title Accidental Adventurers for our talk because, although seemingly unprepared for the harsh realities of their new lives, each of our heroines rises to meet the adventures ahead of her. In the case of 15 year old protagonist, Lydia (Queen Of The Godforsaken), she rises to meet these adventures with a fierce, yet slightly self-destructive game plan.**

PA220030_Fotor1 — **Authors Eileen Kernaghan & Mix Hart @ VPL**

I had a great time in Vancouver (always do—love that city, it’s my second home). I thank Goretti McClean and Julia @ the VPL for inviting us to read; also, Eileen for her wisdom and gracious personality (I learned a lot from observing her reading) and my Vancouver friends for coming out and supporting my book tour—your friendly faces truly made my night!

PA220022_Fotor1 — **Eileen and I chatting before our talk…**

PA220023_Fotor1 — **Mix Hart introduces her debut novel “Queen Of The Godforsaken”**

PA220027_Fotor1 — **Mix Hart reads from “Queen Of The Godforsaken.”**

PA220028_Fotor1 — **Eileen Kernaghan reads form “Sophie In Shadow.”**

Also, a big thank you to my West Coast assistants: Mistaya and Conrad—your support made the night so much easier.

PA220038_Fotor1 — **Conrad, Mix & Mistaya**

PA220034_Fotor3 — **Joop, Mix, Caro & Rob**

**Queen Of The Godforsaken is available at bookstores across North America and Online through Indigo and Amazon.

Queen Of The Godforsaken is a dark yet humorous novel that appeals to both adult and young adult readers. It sounds cliché but readers tell me that, “You’ll laugh out loud and you’ll cry…“. Readers who enjoyed The Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger and The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver or The Secret Life of Bees By Sue Monk Kidd will enjoy Queen….

Queen Of The Godforsaken is told with rare wit by Lydia (a 15 year old protagonist). It is the story of a Vancouver family uprooted when the father (Alex) loses his job at UBC Vancouver and the family decides to move east to rural Saskatchewan, to live on isolated, ancestral land that they’ve inherited on the banks of the South Saskatchewan River. The land has a dark and violent history (The North West Rebellion). The family finds their new home both bucolic and brutal (a land known to reach -60 Celsius with the wind-chill in the winter). Each family member experiences a unique case of prairie culture shock. Lydia and her younger sister, 14 year old Victoria, find fitting in at the local high school nearly impossible.The novel isn’t as much about whether or not the family will survive the land as it is about whether or not they will survive each other…