The first book for young adults from award-winning Bend, Oregon author Kerry Chaput, Chasing Eleanor, gives voice to the hardship amid the adventure of a hardscrabble girl who is more wild thing than woman, as she takes heat in more ways than one. Written after the true story of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s Great Depression-era visit to the Pilot Butte Inn in Bend, Oregon, Chaput’s latest is as full of heart as it is a picture of how famous women in history build stronger young women–a great next read for your Oregon teen.
Coasting downriver to outrun a swarming wildfire, Chasing Eleanor’s Magnolia Parker watches the walls of her home smolder. Taking a bullet to the shoulder, Magnolia sees in her brother’s eyes how, even gone, their mother still haunts them. With bow & arrow, she hunts a dinner that won’t fill their stomachs. And when she loses her brothers to the questionable care of the state, Magnolia finds herself down to her last trick. A promise from the chance-encountered first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt–in that promise, hope.
Here, Chaput puts the Pacific Northwest back on the map of YA historical fiction and considers all of the ways that a woman of influence might use her power for good. And in the spirit of Eleanor Roosevelt herself, the novel guides Magnolia to a larger truth–The only way through it is by loving bigger and harder.
Chasing Eleanor is available for pre-order from Black Rose Writing, Barnes & Noble, and Bookshop, to be released on June 15, 2023.
Nicole Meier, author of The Second Chance Supper Club and The Girl Made of Clay, says, “Brimming with hope and heart, and set against the vivid backdrop of America’s Great Depression, Chasing Eleanor is the story of a young girl’s journey to uncovering the true meaning of family. Readers of historical fiction won’t want to miss this gem of a book.”
For the Muskogee Phoenix, Melony Carey writes, “Chaput’s beautiful prose and sympathetic depiction of conditions during the Great Depression makes Chasing Eleanor as powerful a novel as the women it portrays.”
Kerry Chaput is an award-winning historical fiction author. She believes in the power of stories that highlight young women and found families. Born and raised in California, she now lives in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, where she can be found on hiking trails and in coffee shops.
