Cariboo author Donna Milner describes her new book as the story of a family dealing with loss and tragedy.
“Julie and Ian buy a ranch in a remote fictional valley in the Chilcotin and are basically running away,” Milner said of the story’s main characters during a phone interview.
The characters in Somewhere In-Between are living in a town very much like Williams Lake, Milner said.
Dealing with a crumbling marriage and loss, the two adjust to living isolated, not only from the nearest city, but the jobs that once occupied them full time.
When they buy the property, it’s conditional they allow an existing tenant to stay on.
His name is Virgil Blue and Milner said many people in Williams Lake will recognize that name.
“I actually used the name of a one-time resident of Williams Lake. He was an old cowboy. That’s all I used – his name.”
One time she spied a photograph of Blue on the wall of the Ranch Hotel amidst a display of photographs depicting local cowboys.
“He was a tenant of ours and we found out after he passed away that he was Doukhobor,” she said.
Milner began working on the novel three years ago. Because the original publisher was closing its doors, publication was held up until Caitlin Press picked it up.
Unlike her first two novels, which were historical fiction and involved a lot of research, Somewhere In-Between required research about the weather, and what was happening around the world in 2008 when the novel is set.
“I had to make sure that what happened in the characters’ lives jived with what was going on at the time.”
The only thing that’s “her” in the book is the fact that Julie was a real estate agent.
Milner was in real estate in Williams Lake for 20-something years.
Milner and her husband have lived in the Cariboo for 40 years and presently live off the grid north of Williams Lake on a small lake.
They do have Internet and a magic jack phone so they are connected.
While the couple in the story are “certainly” not based on Milner and her husband, Milner said people could say she was inspired by the fact they moved from living near the golf course in town to a remote location.
When asked about her writing process, Milner said she likes to write in the morning and tells herself she cannot leave the room until she’s written two pages of longhand, “good, bad or indifferent.”
“That seems to work,” she chuckled.
She has gone on several writings retreats out near Eagle Lake in the Chilcotin with another writing buddy.
“We’d go out for a week, hunker down and be very disciplined for a week.”
They’d write in the morning, have lunch and go for a walk, and then review each other’s writing.
“I live in the bush now and don’t really need writing retreats any more,” she added.
When she’s not sitting at the table writing, almost everything reminds her of the book she’s working on.
“That’s a good thing I think. When it stops I’m nervous.”
Milner knew local historical writer, Tribune community editor and columnist Irene Stanghoe, who offered her some insight into the various writing genres.
“She told me once the difference between a reporter and a fiction writer is that a reporter writes from the head and a fiction writer writes from the heart. I thought that was pretty neat.”
On Tuesday evening, Milner was informed her latest book is now number six on the BC Bestseller list this week.
“I’m delighted to be on any list that includes one of my favourite authors, Jack Hodgins,” she said.
A fourth book is now in the works and is set in the Cariboo-Chilcotin as well.
It spans two generations — the 1860s and the 1930s, she said.
Somewhere In-Between is Milner’s third publication.
Her novels After River and The Promise of Rain have been published in many languages.
