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According to Orca Books, "Rachel Dunstan Muller was born in Oakland, California, and immigrated with her parents to Canada when she was two. She spent the first half of her childhood in Ontario, and the second half in Nanaimo, B.C. Rachel attended the University of Victoria. She lives with her husband and four daughters in Ladysmith, on the east coast of Vancouver Island. While caring for her preschoolers at home, Rachel authored two series of local newspaper columns. The first, "Penny-Wise," offered light-hearted advice for the financially challenged. The second column, under the banner of a local non-profit organization, explored environmental issues. She went on to write training materials for operators in the forest industry.
"Muller began writing fiction seriously in 2001, while accompanying her husband on a teaching exchange to Northern Ireland. During her year abroad, she completed her first draft of Ten Thumb Sam (due for release in the fall of 2007), and began an early version of When the Curtain Rises (Orca, 2007). She recently built a wooden kayak in her basement, and then took it paddling around the Broken Islands, off the west coast of Vancouver Island. Muller welcomes invitations to do school presentations." She has also been a ferry worker and an English tutor. When the Curtain Rises concerns a girl's visit to her elderly great-aunts' house to spend part of the summer. From her aunts she learns about her great-grandfather, Dante Magnus, a magician who vanished almost a century earlier. Her curiosity lead her to a mysterious rosewood box which has remained hidden for almost one hundred years.
Her third children's novel is The Solstice Cup (Orca, 2009), the story of two girls who encounter the supernatural during a visit with relatives in Ireland.
Squeeze is an adventure story of two brothers and a college roommate, exploring a wild cave, leading to life-or-death decisions.
BOOKS:
Squeeze (Orca, 2010)
The Solstice Cup (Orca, 2009). $9.95 978-1-55469-017-6
When the Curtain Rises (Orca, 2007). $8.95 978-1-55143-615-9
Ten Thumb Sam
[BCBW 2010] "Kidlit"
"Muller began writing fiction seriously in 2001, while accompanying her husband on a teaching exchange to Northern Ireland. During her year abroad, she completed her first draft of Ten Thumb Sam (due for release in the fall of 2007), and began an early version of When the Curtain Rises (Orca, 2007). She recently built a wooden kayak in her basement, and then took it paddling around the Broken Islands, off the west coast of Vancouver Island. Muller welcomes invitations to do school presentations." She has also been a ferry worker and an English tutor. When the Curtain Rises concerns a girl's visit to her elderly great-aunts' house to spend part of the summer. From her aunts she learns about her great-grandfather, Dante Magnus, a magician who vanished almost a century earlier. Her curiosity lead her to a mysterious rosewood box which has remained hidden for almost one hundred years.
Her third children's novel is The Solstice Cup (Orca, 2009), the story of two girls who encounter the supernatural during a visit with relatives in Ireland.
Squeeze is an adventure story of two brothers and a college roommate, exploring a wild cave, leading to life-or-death decisions.
BOOKS:
Squeeze (Orca, 2010)
The Solstice Cup (Orca, 2009). $9.95 978-1-55469-017-6
When the Curtain Rises (Orca, 2007). $8.95 978-1-55143-615-9
Ten Thumb Sam
[BCBW 2010] "Kidlit"
Articles: 1 Article for this author
The Solstice Cup by Rachel Dunstan Muller (Orca, $9.95) ages 9-13
Review
Solstice is a magically potent time. Anything can happen on the longest day of the year. Or the shortest. In The Solstice Cup twin sisters Breanne and Mackenzie are facing the winter solstice in Ireland and Mackenzie is terrified the Otherworld is reaching out for them again.
Five years earlier, during the summer solstice, Mackenzie knows for certain a long, thin arm came out of the shadows, her sister disappeared and when they found her, she was not the same girl. Breanne scoffs at the outlandish idea her limp, a leg that won't heal, is the work of a malevolent night-dwelling creature's dart.
But Breanne does blame her sister for the affliction and when once again the two girls cross into the Otherworld the festering resentment may well cost them their lives.
The Solstice Cup began brewing for Rachel Dunstan Muller a few years ago when she accompanied her husband on a teaching exchange to Northern Ireland and found inspiration in the mysterious glens. A mother of five, including twins, she lives in a small community on Vancouver Island.
978-1-55469-017-6
[BCBW 2009]
Louise Donnelly
