Toronto Star gardening columnist Sonia Day released her first novel Deer Eyes at a book launch on June 12 at Roxanne’s Reflections.
“My intention was to write a good summer read where you can sit (and read) the book with a bottle of beer or cup of tea,” Day told a crowd at the launch.
She also read excerpts without giving away the ending.
The book centres around three characters: a professor, deer hunter and a botanical artist. Set in the community of Fortune, which Day described as resembling Fergus and Wellington County and New York, the plot sees the three characters’ lives blossom and become interconnected.
“He (the professor) has a very strange obsession which has consequences for the three (characters) in the book,” she said of the closely-guarded plot.
The book also describes the differences between rural and city life. Day is familiar with those differences; she has lived in a refurbished Victorian home with her husband Barrie Murdock in Belwood for the past 14 years and also has an apartment in Toronto where she writes.
“It’s my take on the differences between the rural and city cultures,” Day said of the book’s settings. “All things considered I prefer it here.”
The book is self-published, something Day said presented its own difficulties with her having to promote the book herself. She was asked by someone who had read the book prior to its official launch whether she would consider a sequel.
“I didn’t think about doing a sequel because frankly by the end of it I was quite sick of them (the characters),” she said with a smile.
“The guys who have read this book like the sex. After Fifty Shades of Grey I felt obligated to write it in. Sex was tough to write about.”
The racier parts of the book reflect some of the racier parts of her gardening books, which have tended to show that gardening can be fun and even sexy.
The book is for sale at Roxanne’s Reflections and online at Amazon.com.
