Author Candace Simar’s  2016 Florida tour is underway. Candace is visiting  readers,  fans, historical sites, book clubs and several Sons of Norway groups including:

Saturday 1/9/16  Estero FL Sons of Norway

Wednesday 1/13/16  Tampa Bay Sons of Norway 6:30

Saturday 1/15/16  Clearwater FL  Sons of Norway

Sunday 1/17/16 Sarasota FL Sons of Norway 1pm

Tuesday 1/19/16  10 am AAUW Sanibel Island, Florida

Candace Simar is an award winning author and poet from Pequot Lakes, Minnesota.  As the grandchild of Norwegian immigrants, Candace nurtures a passion for Scandinavian History.

 Her award-winning Abercrombie Trail Series (North Star Press) recounts the story of Scandinavian immigrants during the 1862 Sioux Uprising.  The series includes Abercrombie Trail (2009), Pomme de Terre (2010), Birdie (2011) and Blooming Prairie (2012). Birdie received the prestigious honor of a Spur Award literary prize awarded by the Western Writers of America and Blooming Prairie was a Spur award finalist in same category in 2013. The series was recently released in large print and hardcover by Five Star Cengage and will be released in audio in 2015.

“Simar’s descriptions of the natural world are beautiful.  Her characters are drawn with subtlety and depth.  There are unforgettable death scenes and tender weddings.  This is a story of the bonds of family and friendship, of perseverance and love.  These are rare books, powerful and true.” Nancy Plain, award winning author and Spur award judge.

 Simar spent eight years researching and writing her four novels set during the time of the Civil War and the 1862 Sioux Uprising. She conducted much of her research at the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul and smaller regional museums where she read diaries, newspapers, letters and army reports.  “Scandinavian immigration history is one of my favorite things. All my life I’ve daydreamed how it might have been to live through the earliest days of America, wondered how historical events impacted ordinary people’s lives, and imagined characters and stories.”

While the history is real, she borrows freely from her own family history to create fictional characters. “It wasn’t easy for them,” she says.  “People suffered without adequate medical care or social support systems.  I try to show those things in my books without sugar coating the facts.”  She recommends her novels to readers of all ages.  “Historical fiction is a painless way to learn history.”

 “I just read Pomme de Terre with the greatest interest and enjoyment.  It’s a very vivid telling of this tragic American story.  I’ve long been wanting something in fiction about the Great Sioux Uprising and this book is the best I’ve seen.” Larry McMurtry, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Lonesome Dove

Her new novel, Shelterbelts (North Star Press, 2015) is set in a tightly-knit Scandinavian farming community in Minnesota at the close of WW2.  Tia Fiskum, the old maid of Tolga Township, struggles to control the family farm after her shell-shocked brother returns from the war. Woven throughout is the man who walks lizards, a grieving father, the neighborhood gossipmonger, a disillusioned preacher, the man who fears being returned to the asylum and the Potato King who prays for a miracle.

Award winning author Jonis Agee describes Shelterbelts as a “wonderful novel, full of vivid writing and fierce characters with a passion for finding their place in the world despite the cruelties of war and the realities of living on the land.  Like Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg Ohio, this book explores the secret yearnings of the heart that promise to connect us if we take the time to discover them in each other.  Readers are going to fall in love with Simar’s Tolga Township!”

 Candace also co-authored Farm Girls (RiverPlace Press 2013) with her sister Angela F. Foster. “If you learned to swear in Norwegian or shared a two-holer outhouse with your cousin, you’ll enjoy the poetry and prose of these sisters.  From memories of Norwegian ancestors and growing up on a dairy farm to dreams of Oprah’s couch and rapping with Eminem, Farm Girls will take you back to the days of rural schools, moon light, star light, hope to see a ghost tonight and the auction of the family farm.”

INVITE CANDACE TO SPEAK TO YOUR GROUP!

 For further information on Candace, you may visit www.candacesimar.com