Okanagan Valley native, Rie Charles, travelled through Europe, Australia and other parts of Canada before ending up back where she started. Now home in BC, she writes, plays the harp, and practices and teaches yoga. Charles has a Bachelor of Anthropology and a Masters in Social Work. She has worked as a site researcher for disadvantaged children, co-facilitated groups for abused women, and taught in classrooms from kindergarten to grade 8.

Charles' second book, A Hole in my Heart (Dundurn $12.99) takes place in 1959. Twelve-year-old Nora has lost her mother to cancer and her familiar surroundings in a move from Penticton, to the wet weather of the west coast, where her father has returned to medical school. Nora hates her new life, "I will never be happy and have friends here... so there!!!"; Her father is distant and preoccupied, and her older sisters unreachable. Twelve-year-old Nora is having trouble making friends, is mourning for her mother and worrying about her cousin Lizzie, who needs experimental heart surgery. Nora wonders if things will ever be right again. Can her own broken heart and fractured family be mended?

BOOKS:

No More Dragons (Napolean and Co. 2010) $9.95 9781926607122

[BCBW 2014]