Joanna Wiebe's suspense/fantasy novel The Unseemly Education of Anne Merchant (BenBella Books, 2014) is the first of a trilogy in which the daughter of a mortician, Anne Merchant, finds herself the reluctant leader of a quest to overcome dark forces that thrive on the answer to the question, What would you sacrifice to save the ones you love?

The opening volume, The Unseemly Education of Anne Merchant, is set on a small island that houses a boarding school for some of the world's wealthiest teenagers. The protagonist Anne Merchant can't understand how her father, a funeral parlour director, could have possibly paid for her to attend the exclusive school called Cania Christy. Students ardently compete for the role of class valedictorian, a title that brings rewards no one will talk about. There is a line painted across the island that nobody is allowed to cross.

Born on October 26, 1979, Joanna Wiebe of Victoria is a copywriter and co-founder of Page99Test.com, a critique site for published and unpublished writers. As an undergraduate student, Joanna won several academic awards for excellence in creative writing: Canada's James Patrick Folinsbee Prize, which she won twice, as well as the Godfrey Prize. After graduating, she lived for a year on the remote northern island of Hokkaido, Japan, which is the inspiration for the verdant Wormwood Island of the V Trilogy. She holds a BA in Honors English and an MA in Communications from the University of Alberta.

BOOKS:

The Unseemly Education of Anne Merchant (BenBella Books, 2014) $19.95 978-1-939529-32-9

[BCBW 2013]