NEWS RELEASE
CREATIVE AGING BOOKS & IDEAS
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Creative Aging Books & Ideas is back this fall with a spectacular lineup of award-winning authors.
On Sept. 26, author Gwen K. Harvey will read from her enduring and much-loved book, The Acquisition of Elizabeth Grace.
Harvey’s new novel (The Girlfriend Book was published in 2021) is a story that takes place in both Toronto and England throughout the 1960s (the Toronto references from that era are so interesting), and is a captivating novel of family, with all of their hidden secrets and complications, their weaknesses and strengths. Elizabeth Grace is a baron’s daughter in the English autocracy who grew up wandering the estate grounds of the grand Harrington Hall. A talented artist, she is also frail and buffeted by the emotional and financial challenges life presents.
Elizabeth, along with her husband and two daughters, Sophie and Olivia, travel to England at the tail end of 1961 to celebrate New Year’s with family, which is when things quickly go awry.
“I was 10 years old when our infamous visit happened,” Olivia tells us. “Before everything changed, travel was a much-loved family activity.”
And, oh, what a family it is.
There is the tiny, dainty, soft-spoken Aunt Flora, the family’s loving peacekeeper, who is married to the irascible Uncle Henry, who with “his hooded eyes, protracted nose and hulking presence” is as horrible and cunning as he sounds. Cousins Dora and her imaginary friend, Emily, the mysterious Peter, the Harrington Estate gardener’s son, Frederick, the staunchly efficient and loving butler, along with a host of others, all add delightfully rich context to the subplots.
However, the discovery, by Sophie, of a sapphire and diamond bracelet, gifted to her mother, Elizabeth Grace, wreaks havoc within different pockets of both family units.
And soon, Sophie, whose head “could not knit together what was going on,” was trying to “push away the intrusive finger of caution tapping on my shoulder.”
A series of tumultuous events occur with the girls and their dad going back to Toronto and Elizabeth Grace, who had lost her very essence, withdrawing to an isolated country cottage.
The multi-layer plot lines that Harvey overlays, one on top of the other, with the introduction of evolving timelines and interesting and complex characters right to the very last chapters, is the kind of rich and celebratory pièce de résistance storytelling that leaves readers both thoroughly enthralled and waiting eagerly for her next book to arrive.
And, on Oct. 31 at 2 p.m. Creative Aging Books & Ideas presents Vancouver emergency room physician, not to mention prolific author, Daniel Kalla.
Producing engrossing novels with an intensity that matches the challenges of his other role as an ER physician, Kalla’s character-driven thrillers focus on themes that lie at the heart of his professional life and issues that are important to him, including such diverse topics as addiction, pandemics, superbugs, DNA evidence, and patient abuse. He has written 14 global thrillers, historical suspense, epic stories, and psychological thrillers. In his latest novel, High Society, Kalla explores the effects — sometimes devastating — of the usage of psychedelic drugs for emotional and mental health therapy.
To read author Cece Scott’s reviews of both Harvey and Kalla’s books, as well as engage in the opportunity to chat with both of these highly informative and entertaining authors — and register for your free Zoom links for both events — please visit The Acquisition Of Elizabeth Grace – cecescott.com.
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