Press Release for Never Done

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                 

Contact: Ginger Dehlinger
               Address: 20725 Blacksmith Cir.; Bend OR 97702                        Phone number: (541)771-3213
               Email address: gdehlinger@live.com
               digital photos available by request

DESCENDANT OF COLORADO SETTLER WRITES NOVEL INSPIRED BY HER GREAT-GRANDMOTHER’S LIFE IN SOUTHWESTERN COLORADO

(April 21, 2017)—Bend, Oregon) In Never Done, a novel, Ginger Dehlinger writes with insight and compassion about the life of a girl named Clara who, at the age of twelve, leaves a pampered life in Philadelphia for a world of work in southwestern Colorado. A family drama, the story follows Clara as she matures, marries, and moves from the grasslands of LaJara and Naturita to Norwood when it was called Wright’s Mesa, then to Durango, Gunnison, Ophir Loop, and finally Montrose. Clara and her story were inspired by the author’s great-grandmother who followed a similar path from wood stoves to electricity and from herding cattle to running a hotel where she took care of guests stricken by the flu epidemic of 1918.

ABOUT THE BOOK

     When Ginger’s great-grandmother was eighty-two, her children convinced her to write her life story. Like most women of her generation, the great-grandmother didn’t openly discuss personal matters. For example, all she wrote about her widowed father’s marriage to a sixteen-year-old girl was: “Our life was not so pleasant with the new young wife.”

     “Unpleasant?” Not only was “the new young wife” considerably younger than her widowed father, she was her only friend in the sparsely settled San Luis Valley. So Ginger expanded her great-grandmother’s understated expression of annoyance into a highly fictionalized stormy relationship that takes place between two women from their teens (roughly 1885) until 1919 when one of them dies during the Spanish flu epidemic.

     Published by The Wild Rose Press, the genre for Never Done is historical fiction/women’s fiction. Of special historic interest is the author’s treatment of the Spanish flu—how it affected the novel’s characters as well as the people of Colorado in general. The hundredth anniversary of this pandemic takes place in 2018, and the final chapters of Never Done are a good source of information for people wishing to know more about it.

AVAILABILITY

     Never Done is available in both print and digital formats through Amazon, Goodreads, and The Wild Rose Press. It is also carried in digital format through Barnes and Noble. This novel is well-suited for book club discussions. Signed copies are available from the author at a reduced price.     

FIVE-STAR REVIEWS

Never Done has received many five-star reviews such as the one below.

ByReading ELFon May 4, 2017

Format: Paperback|Verified Purchase

     I love stories that are based on historic truth and Ms. Dehlinger had a clear window to history, when she acknowledged the extraordinary life of her great grandmother who lived to age 98, leaving behind a hand-written memoir. The result is a well-written fact-based fictional view of one family’s survival in Colorado in the latter part of the 19th century.

     Survival was always tenuous in changing times, and particularly hard on women with agendas that were “Never Done.” Heroines Clara and Geneva are teenage cousins whose friendship is shattered when one becomes stepmother to the other. Both grow up fast in times that most of us can hardly imagine. Ms. Dehlinger paints a realistic picture—with prose to match—about their troubled relationship and double coin of survival over thirty plus years. 

     I was brought to tears when the drama climaxes in the 1918 flu pandemic that killed more people than WWI. “Never Done” is a vivid testimonial to the indomitable spirit of all ancestors who struggled to survive while holding family together. I look forward to reading more from this talented author who seamlessly blends fact with fiction in a well-told relatable and thoroughly entertaining story.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

     Never Done is Ginger's second novel. Her first, Brute Heart, is set in Oregon. Also a family drama, Brute Heart reflects her experience as the child of an alcoholic father. It also deals with assisted dying, a subject that required research and gentle handling.    
     The author writes in multiple disciplines. Her feature articles have appeared in the Small Farmer’s Journal and Horsefly. A nature essay “Last Ride” won first place in a Pacific Northwest writing competition. She also received an honorable mention from Writer’s Digest for her poem, “A Bar Stool’s Lament."     
     Ginger was born and raised in Klamath Falls, Oregon. A University of Oregon graduate with a BA in history, she lives in Bend, Oregon with her husband, Richard, and a cat named Kiki.

Never Done by Ginger Dehlinger
-The Wild Rose Press                                    
-Print ISBN: 978-1-5092-1372-6        
-Price: $17.99
-Pages 381
-Digital ISBN: 978-1-5092-1373-3
-Price: $5.99
-Pages 290                                          

                                                                        

Address all inquiries to:

Ginger Dehlinger
gdehlinger@live.com