RUTH CHORNEY
- A Powerful Rural Voice -
Exciting New Title Coming June 2025!
Just in time for summer reading...
No Straight Lines
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After a six year absence, Ingrid Johanson, a kitchen designer from Toronto, comes home for her father's funeral to discover the more things change, the more they stay the same. She reconnects with The Viking Five, her tribe growing up. Haunted by questions regarding her brother's death years earlier, and by reminders of why she left so suddenly, Ingrid and her best friends Mariah and Jared try to sort out the past. When Tristan Everleigh, the spoiled rich kid who hung out with the group, dies in a fall off the old Trestle Bridge, Detective Deitrich discovers that more than one person in town may have wanted Tristan dead. No Straight Lines is a murder mystery set in 2025 in the fictional town of Kettlebank in northeastern Saskatchewan.
Was Tristan's death a suicide? An accident? Or murder? How did the secrets of the past catch up with him?
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And why are Ingrid and Mariah prime suspects?
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Read The First Chapter of
No Straight Lines
Dear Reader,
In gratitude for your support, I am sharing Chapter One of my latest novel No Straight Lines for your reading pleasure.
Books will be available for purchase in June--please check in with me personally or on Face Book, or revisit this Website to order a copy.
As well, I will have books for sale this summer at the Greenwater Farmers Market the following Saturday mornings: July 5, July 26 and August 9.
Further distribution sites TBA.
As always, I look forward to your feedback. Thank you for your interest!
Own The Entire Deer Creek Series
"I have now finished all three books and loved them all! I enjoy both your writing style and story telling. It was so great how you wrapped up Tera's story in Haunted. Please let me know if (hopefully when) you write another novel. It'll be on my reading list! --Lisa, Regina, SK
Follow all the threads woven through these stand-alone novels. Find out how Tera is faring since getting out of prison and the story behind Marny's mother's "escape" from Deer Creek. Own all three and/or purchase the set as a gift.
Price: $65 taxes included, plus shipping, to anywhere in Canada when you purchase the entire series.
HAUNTED - A Novel
Haunted, the third novel in the "Deer Creek" series. Also available from McNally Robinson and SaskBooks.
184 pages of Saskatchewan-based entertainment.
$25 plus $5 shipping
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Filled with characters you might meet at the local Co-op, this novel follows women of all ages bonding in mutual support.
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In dire financial straits, Marny Elliot and her young family move from Vancouver to her grandparents’ long-vacant farm in northeastern Saskatchewan, setting in motion a series of events which unravel unsolved mysteries in the community of Deer Creek. What secrets haunt the neighbours? What
really happened to Tera’s missing husband? Where is the wife of the local bootlegger? Why did Marny’s mother leave Deer Creek “mentally, physically and spiritually” and vow never to return?
Are there entities at large on the property?
A thoroughly satisfying read that explores the many dimensions of haunting—and healing.
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Reader's Review: Haunted
"This author has formidable handles on pacing, plot and characterization."
CONSPIRACY -
A Novel
From an Auction Sale in April to a Fall Supper in October, this novel brings to life one summer of rural situations and relationships.
Joel Weston and his wife Krissy, who moved to the farm five years ago, experience the complexities of rural life and struggle with the consequences of their choices.
When Joel meets Grace, an eighty-year-old farm woman, picking mushrooms in the forest, they form an unlikely alliance, supporting each other through difficult times.
As the story develops, the characters deal with the difference between letting life make decisions for them and saying “yes” to their destinies.
And, by the way, “You can eat all mushrooms, some only once.”
Conspiracy feedback from readers...
Read a review of Conspiracy at the SaskBooks review website:
https://reviews.skbooks.com/conspiracy/
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More Reviews:
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“I couldn’t put it down until I found out what happened to Joel, Krissy and Amanda!”
--G. F., Dundurn, Saskatchewan
“I finished reading Conspiracy and wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed it...Second efforts sometimes pale in comparison to the first, but that was not the case here…I love your characters. They are the folks that one is liable to meet at the Co-op, the Harvest Supper, or in front of the town post office…Bringing Tera back into the story was a great idea.
The rich descriptions of daily farm life, farm operations, and the natural environment were powerful and enlightening. You showed us that there is much involved with operating and surviving on a modern farm. There is no need to travel back in time to the frontier in search of excitement and adventure as there is plenty here in the new west…
Finally, you kept your readers in suspense right to the very end of the story. I truly enjoyed reading each page and looked forward to discovering what might happen next.”
--John A., Edmonton Alberta
“Thank you for writing this story just for me! I was feeling homesick for Saskatchewan.”
--C.M., Kamloops, British Columbia
“I love that you tied in characters from Buried. What’s next in the Deer Creek series?”
--Dennis A., Yellowknife NWT
High Plains Book Awards Finalist 2019
BURIED - A Novel
Tera Jones McAllen is in prison for murdering her husband Tom. Although convicted by a jury of her peers, Tera claims innocence.
And no body has been found.
As Tera talks to a reporter named Sue, the story unfolds, weaving seamlessly between the present and the past: Tera’s experiences as a farm wife in northeastern Saskatchewan over the past 20 years.
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This is more than a murder mystery. It is a love story, a story of betrayal and disillusionment, and a statement about rural life.
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Told in the pragmatic voice of Tera, 'Buried' is a testimony to the resilience of rural women.
“I felt this novel was the story of an alternate reality of my own life. There but for fortune...”
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“I couldn’t put it down.”
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“Many stories are told with a Saskatchewan background. This is the first I have read that captures the geography and people of the northeast of the province.”
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“I see this as a screenplay.”
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“It’s a page turner!”
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“The setting, the characters and the story are all very local. I felt I knew these people and they might live in my home town.”
“I learned so much about farm life. I had no idea farmers worked so hard or that they were so dependent on the weather. So many things can go wrong!”
MY BOOKS
The Deer Creek Series
Children's Books
