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Livestream Reading: Ashley Sweeney with Ellen Notbohm
November 5, 2020 @ 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
FreeAnnie Bloom’s Books welcomes Washington author Ashley Sweeney for a livestream reading from her new novel, Answer Creek. Ashley will be in conversation with Portland author Ellen Notbohm, who previously read at Annie Bloom’s from her novel The River by Starlight.
Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYvcuqtqD4jGtYlb_6pMELJC-HAaykPI6aX
About Ashley Sweeney’s Answer Creek:
From the award-winning author of Eliza Waite comes a gripping tale of adventure and survival based on the true story of the ill-fated Donner Party on their 2,200-mile trek on the Oregon-California Trail from 1846 to ’47.
Nineteen-year-old Ada Weeks confronts danger and calamity along the hazard-filled journey to California. After a fateful decision that delays the overlanders more than a month, she––along with eighty-one other members of the Donner Party––finds herself stranded at Truckee Lake on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, stuck there for the entirety of a despairing, blizzard-filled winter. Forced to eat shoe leather and blankets to survive, will Ada be able to battle the elements––and her own demons––as she envisions a new life in California?
Researched with impeccable detail and filled with imagery as wide as the western prairie, Answer Creek blends history and hearsay in an unforgettable story of challenging the limits of human endurance and experiencing the triumphant power of love.
About Ellen Notbohm’s The River by Starlight:
Annie Rushton leaves behind an unsettling past to join her brother on his Montana homestead and make a determined fresh start. There, sparks fly when she tangles with Adam Fielding, a visionary businessman-farmer determined to make his own way and answer to no one. Neither is looking for a partner, but they give in to their undeniable chemistry.
Annie and Adam’s marriage brims with astounding success and unanticipated passion, but their dream of having a child eludes them as a mysterious illness of mind and body plagues Annie’s pregnancies. Amidst deepening economic adversity, natural disaster, and the onset of world war, their personal struggles collide with the societal mores of the day. Annie’s shattering periods of black depression and violent outbursts exact a terrible price. The life the Fieldings have forged begins to unravel, and the only path ahead leads to unthinkable loss.
Based on true events, this sweeping novel weaves a century-old story, timeless in its telling of love, heartbreak, healing, and redemption embodied in one woman’s tenacious quest for control over her own destiny in the face of devastating misfortune and social injustice.