After drawing on her hometown of Newmarket for two of her books, author Alyssa Hall is coming home for a book signing at Chapters Newmarket on Saturday, Sept. 3.
Hall's first book, Trusting Claire, came out in 2020. She said it is "largely about Newmarket, loosely based on my life growing up as a child of Russian refugees."
Hall said the early years were tough in Newmarket as they didn't speak the language and it was hard to make friends. However, they eventually were able to move from a rooming house to a family home on Eagle Street and she wound up working in real estate.
In 1986, she moved to British Columbia, where she still lives to this day. It wasn't until after she retired that she really got into writing, but it had always been a dream of hers.
"It's something I've always wanted to do, I think, with raising kids and working full time and everything like that, it always just seemed like a pipe dream," Hall said.
She credits a colleague and dear friend of hers, Frank, with giving her the encouragement and the nerve to "pick up that pen and make a story."
Since then Hall has written two more books. The second, Wanting Aidan, is set in England, where her husband is from, while the third, Romero Pools, is a return to her first character, Claire, and again based in Newmarket.
Because the second two books came out during the pandemic, she said she wasn't able to do much marketing or promotion. When Chapters Newmarket invited her for a book signing, she said they decided to "turn it into one big event and just do a signing and have all three available for anyone that may be interested."
She said is excited to be returning to Newmarket.
"For me to come to my hometown, I don't even have the words to say how much it means to me," she said.
One person who is excited about the signing is Jo Donnell-Vella. She said she recently read Trusting Claire and was thrilled to learn that Hall is from Newmarket, like herself.
"When I realized that this new author was born in Newmarket, my curiosity got me delving head first into this book. Not knowing what to expect, I was completely won over by this new author. I started the book, read it straight through, finishing it the same day," she said.
For Donnell-Vella, the fact that the story was set in Newmarket "will take you back in time, to familiar old haunts of our childhood town. My memories of places we used to hang out in Newmarket came flooding back."
She said she is already planning to buy Hall's next two books.
The signing with Alyssa Hall is taking place at Chapters Newmarket on Sept. 3 from noon to 4 p.m. She said people can buy any of her books there or bring in copies they already own.
Hall's fourth book which is in the works now, is called Hero of Blackpool and, according to the author, is set to come out next spring.
