Blogger Meet-Up VIP Guest #7 - Maureen McGowan

Maureen McGowan will be stopping by the meet-up as our seventh VIP author! 

Maureen has several YA novels published through Silver Dolphin Books, and her newest book, Deviants, will be released by Marshall Cavendish Books on October 30, 2012.

She spent her childhood in various Canadian cities, and also briefly lived in California and Philadelphia before settling in Toronto. Among her favourite things are shoes, art and dance.

In a post-apocalyptic world, where the earth is buried by asteroid dust that’s mutated the DNA of some humans, orphaned, sixteen-year-old Glory must protect her younger brother and escape the domed city that’s been her entire world.

Outside in the ruins, they’re pursued by the authorities and by sadistic, scab-covered Shredders who are addicted to the lethal-to-humans dust now covering the planet. Glory’s quests to transport herself and her brother to safety make up the thrilling and fascinating first volume of The Dust Chronicles.

Blogger Meet-Up VIP Guest #4 - Grace O'Connell

Grace O'Connell is the fourth VIP author that we'll be hosting in November! 

Grace's debut novel, Magnified World, was published by Random House earlier this year. She is a freelance writer and editor, and she currently resides in Toronto.

Her work has also been published by The Walrus, Taddle Creek, and the Quill & Quire. She also teaches at the University of Toronto.

What's a girl supposed to do after her mother kills herself by walking into the Don River with her pockets full of unpolished zircon stones? Maggie removes the zircon stones from the inventory of the family's New Age shop and opens up for another day of business. 

Then her blackouts begin, as do the visits from a mysterious customer who offers help for Maggie's blackouts and her project of investigating her mother's past in the American South. Is Maggie breaking down in the way her mother did, or is her "madness" a distinctive show of grief? Nobody really knows, not her father, her boyfriend or her psychiatrist, and especially not Maggie, who has to make some crazy decisions in order to work to feel sane again. 

A vivid look at the various confusions that can set in after a trauma and an insightful, gently funny portrait of a woman in her early twenties, especially relatable to readers who grew up in the eighties and nineties, Magnified World dramatizes the battle between the head and the heart and the limitations of both in unlocking something as complicated as loss.

We Want to Know More About You!!!

If you are a book blogger and live in Canada, we want to know more about you! We are going to feature a different blogger each month. We also need guest posters!!! If you would like to do a guest post on Ontario Blog Squad or if you are interested in being featured please email Jen- librarygal(at) hotmail (dot) ca