Celebrate Life's Highs And Lows With VALLEY OF SAINT ANNE And HIMBA POND DANCE

With consummate skill, Dave Gioia draws us into contemporary life in Southern California. In Valley of Saint Anne and Himba Pond Dance, Dave captures the joy and sorrow we experience as we come of age and continue to mature as adults.

In Valley of Saint Anne, the main character, twelve-year-old Dee Dee, is inspired to keep a journal after reading Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl. Her inquisitive and insightful young mind serves as a moral compass as she works her way through the tragic loss of her father, her mother's loneliness, a growing curiosity about sex and her first encounter with a boy. She yearns for a Quinceañera to mark her coming of age as a young woman, and fights to gain confidence and courage as she learns to surf.

In Dave's second novel, Himba Pond Dance, Trey Hollinswood, 15, and his thirteen-year-old sister Kim, discover growing up is never easy and never ends. First their parents separate, then the bank forecloses on their home; they stay with their mom in a homeless shelter and then in the home of a man she meets through work. The atmosphere in his home is tense and life for Trey and Kim is made more difficult because they have to share a bedroom. Like all young people they have issues, Trey his burgeoning sexuality and Kim her sexual identity. They learn about both and ultimately the importance of friendship in this story set during the Great Recession.

Dave Gioia lives and writes in Orange County, California. The landscape, landmarks, atmosphere, politics and culture of his home inform both novels, but the themes they deal with are universal. Dave's novels are character-driven stories about real life that examine relationships. His stories are rich with characters of all ages and treat the sacred and the profane and everything in between. Relations between people in Dave's stories can be warm, tender and loving, and also cool, harsh and hateful. As you observe the people in Dave's stories interacting and reacting to each other in relationships, you will see the entire spectrum of human emotions on display.

For more information, visit the author's website: www.davegioia.com.

Valley of Saint Anne ISBN-13: 978-1480173293
Himba Pond Dance ISBN-13: 978-1480173286
Available at Amazon in paperback and Kindle http://amzn.to/15Sgdvb

To post a comment, you must register and login.