Is your book club looking for an engaging novel with relatable characters that will spark conversation? Sign up to get free resources for your book club.
What will you get?
Discussion Guide
I have put together questions that should get conversation flowing in your book club. No need to use generic guides or come up with your own!
Author Interaction
Bring me to your book club! Choose premade content, submit reader questions, or invite me to attend.
Promotional Materials
Premade advertisements including editable flyers, social media posts, and links for your members!
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Meet the Author
Growing up with congenital heart defects and feeling different from everyone around me, I found friends within the pages of books. While other kids were playing sports and taking risks, I could be found reading in the branches of the tree in my front yard. My love of stories never waned, leading me to be certified as a school librarian and striving to connect every student to their “just right book.”
Using my experience as a teacher and librarian, I have created higher level questions to cultivate discussion and spark interest. My experience with social anxiety, therapy, blogging, and role-playing are represented in my book and in the discussion prompts.
I currently live north of Dallas, Texas with my husband, twin teenagers, mother-in-law, two dogs, and one lizard. I would love to meet with your book club or answer any questions.
What readers are saying about Quest to Valadin
“As someone with social anxiety, I found the main character Alanna’s inner thoughts similar to my own at many points in my life. I often read books in the fantasy genre, so I enjoyed the fantasy and magic element that Quest Therapy introduced to the storyline. I found myself invested in Alanna and her fellow questers’ lives. Seeing how the characters worked to connect with each other and overcome their own issues made me feel less alone, and like I could do the same. It showed that being vulnerable with others is scary, but worth it. At the end of the book, I found myself wanting to see what happens next. I’m excited for book two!” – Gillian Turner
FAQ
Once I receive your request for materials, you’ll receive an email with a link and password. There you will find general author materials, discussion guides, and promotional materials. Contact me and we can discuss how interactive you will want me to be with your group.
That is totally doable! If your book club is local to the DFW area, I will work with your contact to attend in person. Otherwise, we can set up a virtual visit.
If you have 10 or more members that would like to purchase a paperback copy of the book, you can get a 25% discount for all through my personal store, which we can discuss as we finalize the details.
Quest to Valadin is a contemporary story, sprinkled with fantasy role-playing. The central characters are working on developing tools to manage their various mental health struggles. Anxiety, bi-polar, anger issues, people pleasing, and control issues are all represented in a realistic and thoughtful way.
While Quest to Valadin seeks to illustrate the growth of the characters, there are various depictions of real-life panic attacks and anxiety triggers.
“Aside from the anxiety representation, this story also features queer representation and religion, specifically Christianity. Those two are known for not always being on amicable terms, to put it mildly. The Christians depicted in the story are all queer-affirming. The existence of Christian queerphobia is acknowledged (and criticized), but no concrete instances of it are described. Religion doesn’t dominate the story: the vast majority of the book reads like a secular novel, and the parts that do involve religion felt more oriented towards personal development and community than pushing a religious message, which I appreciated. I hope the future will see more and more inclusivity in all societal contexts, including religious ones, and in that sense this book is definitely part of the solution, not the problem.”
– Goodreads reviewer