Back Home to Sherwood Park

Last weekend I headed home for my Mum's birthday and I also snuck in a reading at the local library while I was at it. This was a joint venture with fantasy author J.Y.T. Kennedy, who is also with Dragon Moon Press, and lives just outside of my hometown.

J.K.'s novel Dominion, was released in 2005. The protagonist of this story is a woman called Gilna, who completes her training as a perfumer just before her village is ravaged first by plague, then by an unstoppable invading army bent on conquering everything in their path. Gilna's skills allow her to administer medicines through scents, and alternately, deadly poisons. As a healer and survivor of the plague, Gilna is deemed useful by the invading Kurathk, and is kept as a servant to the tribal leaders. Her need to survive within her captive state battles with her guilt over assisting her peoples' sworn enemy, until she determines a way to use the power and influence she garners from her new position to manipulate the Kurathk. Although she is terrified of the dreamworld, help comes from that ethereal dimension, as Gilna plots to destroy the Kurathk through their growing dependency on her.

Although many people had told us they'd seen the article about the event published in the Nov 2nd edition of Strathcona County This Week, there was a small turnout. The atmosphere was pleasantly relaxed, where the audience munched on home baked goodies (and my store bought cookies) along with some tea or coffee. Some of my friends from elementary and high school turned out, as well as some of J.K.'s writer group buddies. I finally got J.K. to sign my copy of her book, and had the chance to sign a few of my own. That was the nice thing about this set up; everyone who showed up had a genuine interest in the books.