B.C author Brian Preston is bringing his books to the Kootenays later this summer.
His “Stag and a Lady” tour highlights two of his works. Stag: A Novel for Guys Who Haven’t Read a Novel in Years, was published last year, and A Lady Under Siege is an old favourite that was released in 2013.
The tour will take him from the island to the heart of the Rockies. He plans to stop at Bacchus Books and Cafe in Golden on July 31 and Fernie Distillers on Aug. 3. He also plans to sell his books on the streets of Cranbrook and Kimberley on Aug. 1 — a homage to one of his author idols Crad Kilodney, who sold his works on Toronto’s downtown sidewalks from 1978 to 1995.
Stag follows Trevor, a lonely newly-divorced father living in the suburbs of Saanich B.C, who seeks company amongst the deer in his backyard and begins sleeping amongst them each night. When a doe is killed by a car, he adopts her fawn and raises it as his own, but things take a turn for the worst when his neighbour hires a bow hunter named Crystal to rid the neighbourhood of them. Despite his plans to thwart the cull, Trevor is drawn to Crystal and the two strike up an unlikely friendship.
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Trevor’s curiosity for the natural world combines with the absurdly comical situation he finds himself in to create a unique plotline that is just as informative as it is entertaining. Readers will find they learn about the biology of deer, like the fact that they can break down what they smell into categories to determine what substances are present in their surroundings, or that female deer have two-sided uteruses, so that they can have twins from two different males.
The book was inspired by the classic urban deer battle that engages many communities across the province.
“There’s tons of deer wandering around in urban areas … We had an issue here [on the island] of people who are wanting to cull the deer and people who want to let them do their thing,” said Preston.
The cover art for Stag was designed by Troy “Bubba” Cook, a local musician and painter who was a pillar in the Fernie arts community. Preston became acquainted with Cook when he lived in Fernie in the summer of ‘96.
In A Lady Under Siege, Meghan deals with daily stresses from work, relationships and parenting, but at night she dreams of a lady named Sylvanne who is trapped in her dying husband’s castle laid siege to by the army of a powerful lord.
“She doesn’t know why she’s dreaming this stuff, but [she realizes] the lord looks just like her next-door neighbour. The lord, he’s dreaming of her next-door neighbour’s life,” Preston explained.
“She’s dreaming of this medieval setting and there’s a guy in that medieval setting who’s dreaming of the present, but they don’t dream at each other. They have to communicate through other people.”
Meghan is pulled into an unnerving adventure when Sylvanne begins plotting revenge on the lord in a scheme that bares resemblance to a biblical story in the Old Testament, where Israelite heroine Judith beheads Assyrian general Holofernes.
Brian Preston is an award-winning author who has been published in Rolling Stone, Details and Vogue. His book Pot Planet was a bestseller in Britain.
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