in a Manor of Speaking (Long Point County)

Even after twenty years, the tight-knit Ontario community of Long Point County remains haunted by the tragic Lake Erie shipwreck that took place just off its coast in 1852. Several of its survivors still live among them even now, having been adopted into local families after washing ashore. Even the sunken wreckage of the ship itself had changed lives, and not for the better-most notably that of one of its most promising young men, drawn by the dangerous lure of its rumoured treasures.

Still, no one in town had been more affected by the tragedy than local historian Becky McCormack. She'd dedicated the past two decades of her life to intensive research in the hopes of uncovering, at last, the identities of each person who'd been lost on that horrible day and ensuring that none would remain unmourned or forgotten, whether buried namelessly in the local cemetery or lost to Lake Erie's unforgiving waters.

No longer young by anybody's standards, and with dementia beginning to sink its claws into her once razor-sharp mind, Becky's family and friends can now only hope that she'll finish her life's work before it's too late, attaining the closure and peace she's sought on behalf of others for so long. And in doing so ... finally reclaim her own.

With an M.A. in education, author Joan McNamee has played many roles over the course of her long life-a nurse, a flight attendant, an instructor at a university-but her love of writing and history has been a constant throughout. As her own family has very deep roots along the Lake Erie coast, going back several generations, it is (perhaps) not surprising that both of her novels-And Still the Flowers Grow (FriesenPress, 2021) and its sequel, In a Manor of Speaking-both take place along those very shores.

Now eighty-five years old, McNamee lives in Kamloops, B.C. with her husband, Don, to whom she's been married for almost sixty years, and with five grown children, and thirteen grandchildren, remains very active in both her local and church communities. When she's not reading or writing, she always enjoys spending time with her ever-expanding circle of family and friends.

To connect with the author, please visit www.joancnamee.com.