Saanich author Valerie Green says she has taken somewhat of a gamble in her senior years, setting aside her craft as a non-fiction writer to pursue her dream of completing a work of fiction inspired during her childhood.

Her debut historical fiction novel recently released by Hancock House Publishers B次元官网网址� called Providence B次元官网网址� is the first in a four-part series chronicling B.C. history from early European settlement to todayB次元官网网址檚 time of truth and reconciliation.

Green has published more than 20 non-fiction crime books set in the Pacific Northwest, but says writing a definitive historical novel set in CanadaB次元官网网址檚 westernmost province has been a lifelong dream.

B次元官网网址淚tB次元官网网址檚 strange B次元官网网址� it sort of goes back many years,B次元官网网址� she told the Saanich B次元官网网址 in her living room. B次元官网网址淚t was always my desire to write fiction.B次元官网网址�

B次元官网网址淏ut this particular story that I wanted to tell, in many ways, might have been inspired by something that happened when I was about nine years old. An uncle of mine who had a wonderful collection of rare books had given me a little book and it was inscribed to a woman called Jane Hopkins, who I was told was my great-great grandmother.B次元官网网址�

But Green says it is not her great-great grandmotherB次元官网网址檚 story, despite taking the name for the bookB次元官网网址檚 protagonist.

According to Green, Providence tells the sweeping story of two parallel lives B次元官网网址� a feisty orphaned girl, Jane Hopkins, in England and the son, Gideon McBride, of a poor fisherman in Scotland B次元官网网址� who both journey to Vancouver Island in search of a better life.

Their lives eventually converge in Victoria, where the two fall in love, marry and build a family dynasty with a business.

The four-book McBride Chronicles series is a family saga following six generations from the 1840s to present day. Green says the series also attempts to illustrate both sides of colonialism in B.C.

B次元官网网址淚 wanted it to be something like the definitive story, the background of British Columbia, told through the voices of a fictional family,B次元官网网址� she said. B次元官网网址淏ut the background is always the real history B次元官网网址� the things that were going on at the time.B次元官网网址�

While the fourth and final book remains a work in progress, Green says the seriesB次元官网网址� second book, Destiny, is expected to be released sometime this summer.

Copies of Providence can be purchased from all quality bookstores, online and directly from the publisher at .

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