Invermere author Elinor Florence received her Christmas present early this year — a signed contract with Simon & Schuster for her new historical novel Finding Flora.

The book won’t be released until April, but if you want a special gift for the readers in your life, the book is now available for preorder at both Huckleberry Books and Coles Cranbrook.

“Call or visit your favourite bookstore to place your order, then give your recipient a Christmas card with instructions to pick up the book the first day it is released,” she explained. The book can also be ordered through any online bookseller including Amazon, although Florence said she prefers to support local businesses.

Finding Flora tells the story of Scottish immigrant Flora Craigie, who leaps from a speeding train in 1905 to escape an abusive husband and finds herself alone on the Alberta prairie. Desperate to hide, Flora claims a homestead and makes friends with four neighbouring women — an American couple, a Welsh widow with three children, and a Métis woman — who join forces to battle both the brutal environment and a hostile government.

“The novel is set near Alix, Alberta, east of Red Deer,” the author said. “I chose that location because I was inspired by the story behind the naming of the village after Alix Westhead, the first white woman in the area.”

The book also has a local angle. Her Métis character was inspired by Rosalee Kinbasket, daughter of the last hereditary chief of the Shuswap Band, who lived in the Columbia Valley.

“I named my Métis character Jessie McDonald after my own Scottish Cree great-grandmother, who hailed from the Red River area in Manitoba,” the author explained. Florence is a long-time member of the Métis Nation of British Columbia.

She grew up on a Saskatchewan farm and worked as a journalist in all four Western provinces before she and her husband Heinz Drews and their four children moved from Vancouver to Invermere in 1996.

She spent eight years working from home, writing for Reader’s Digest, before purchasing the Columbia Valley Pioneer weekly newspaper in 2004. Florence sold the newspaper in 2010 to tackle her first novel Bird’s Eye View, the story of a Saskatchewan farm girl who joins the air force during the Second World War. It became a Canadian bestseller.

Her second novel Wildwood, about a single mother who inherits an abandoned off-the-grid farm, was termed by Kobo as “One of the Top 100 Canadian Novels of All Time.”

Florence said she was thrilled to be offered a contract with the prestigious Simon & Schuster publishing firm, based in New York. “It’s exciting because they are one of the big five publishers in the world. My first two novels were published by a smaller Canadian company, but this time around I’ll have plenty of support including my own publicist.”

Her career got another boost this year when she co-authored a screenplay based on her novel Wildwood, and it was optioned by a movie company.

“The movie is still a long shot because the company must raise millions of dollars from investors before going into production, but I was delighted to get a call from Kevin DeWalt, the president of Minds Eye Entertainment. He said he teared up when he read the script!”

Florence said Finding Flora will be launched at a party here in Invermere on April 1, 2025, sponsored by her local bookstore, Four Points Books. She expects to visit Cranbrook soon afterwards although her book tour is still being planned.

Meanwhile, you can support the author by preordering the book. “Preorders are important for three reasons,” she explained. “Firstly, they create a buzz among booksellers. Secondly, the publisher establishes their promotion budget on the number of preorders. And thirdly, the weekly bestseller list in Canada is based on the number of books sold in one seven-day period, so Flora has a shot at making the top ten if enough people order the book in advance.”

Besides writing novels, Florence has penned a monthly blog called Letters From Windermere for the past 11 years. “I hate the word blog and prefer to call it a newsletter,” she said. “I write about my love of history, my writing, and my travels. I also recommend a good book each month.”

Read more about the author, and subscribe to Letters From Windermere, at www.elinorflorence.com.

Florence’s previous novels, Bird’s Eye View and Wildwood, are temporarily out of print. However, copies are still available at Coles Books in Cranbrook, plus Four Points Books and Lambert-Kipp Pharmacy in Invermere.

Photo submitted

e-KNOW

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