September 23, 2018
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Looking for a spooky read in time for Halloween? Mt. Juliet author, D. G. Driver, had an idea for a story about a teen girl that gets lost on a lake in a small rowboat haunted by the ghost of a boy who has drowned. She chose to set the story at Center Hill Lake with scenes in historic Smithville. Lost on the Water – A Ghost Story, her newest YA novel published by Fire and Ice Young Adult Books, was released in July, and Driver will be reading from it and signing copies at Button Willow General Store on October 20th at 10:00am.
When she first came up with the concept for this story, Driver had only been living in Tennessee for seven years, having moved from Southern California. She knew a lot about beaches but not much about lakes. So, she thought it would be fun to use her experience and make her main character a young Californian with no knowledge of lakes and put her in the middle of one of the biggest lakes in Tennessee – Center Hill Lake in DeKalb County.
During the writing of the novel, Driver visited the lake and the Fiddler’s Jamboree Festival in historic Smithville nearby. There are mentions in the novel of the town and the lake’s history, how it is really a reservoir created by a dam built by the Army Corps of Engineers. It is sixty-four miles long and covers 415 miles of shoreline. People go missing, have accidents, or drown every year on this vast body of water, so it is easy to imagine that 14-year-old Dannie from the novel would have a hard time navigating it or might run into a ghost or two.
Lost on the Water – A Ghost Story is Driver’s first novel set here in Tennessee. She considers it a bit of a love letter to her new home state. When Driver first moved to Tennessee from Los Angeles, she had the misconception that the state would be a lot more rural than it is. While there are still a lot of places that have that small town feel to it, most of the places she’s been to in Middle Tennessee are either cities or sprawling suburban towns not all that different from out West. People here are friendly and welcoming, as she imagined, but they definitely aren’t ‘backward’ like movies and media suggest. Part of her goal with this novel was to have her California beach girl character discover these things during her two-week stay with her grandmother while her parents are on vacation. Dannie meets a group of local kids and finds out that they aren’t that different from her friends back home. In fact, they are very cool and open-minded, so much so that they invite her, a new kid, to their annual summer camp-out on the lake.
Driver is excited to be doing a booksigning in the town where the story takes place at the lovely Button Willow General Store. For the event, they will be serving hot apple cider and homemade orange Italian cream sodas. Driver will be giving ghost lollipops to all the young readers that attend. This novel is targeted toward readers 11-16 years old, and is the perfect book for reading by flashlight under the covers on a late Autumn evening. If you’re a fan of coming-of-age stories like the movie Stand By Me, you’ll enjoy this book.
If you miss this event, Driver will also be at the Taste of Wilson County on October 25th at 5:30 pm at the Expo Center in Lebanon. Lost on the Water – A Ghost Story is available at all online book retailers, including Amazon and BarnesandNoble.com. You can learn more about this novel and her other books by visiting www.dgdriver.com.
Button Willow General Store – 109 West Main Street Smithville, TN 37166