Local author, social activist and retired music teacher Sharon MacGougan will be hosting a public reading of her new book The Mayan Mysteries, her first fiction novel.
The reading will be on March 22 from 7-8 p.m. at the Brighouse branch of the Richmond Public Library.
It is free and you can drop in whenever you like.
The novel for young adults is based around the real life mystery of the disappearance of the ancient Mayan civilization and is about the inner transformation of a young Canadian girl.
The 15-year-old girl embarks on an adventure through Mexico, Peru and Egypt with the help of a Mayan high priest and a young guide.
MacGougan got the idea for the story after spending a lot of time exploring the areas of the book, specifically Mexico where she spoke to many shamans about the Mayans.
"I spent a lot of time visiting sacred sites in Mexico, at least 10 times," said MacGougan.
"I was interested by the idea of the disappearance of the Mayans, as lots of people are.
"I just took the idea for the book that there's something buried in the beginning of the book in Ancient time by the Mayans and they disappear."
A big theme of the story is realizing destiny and the main character, Josephine, goes through some significant changes in order to do that.
"She lives a normal life, she hasn't had a father in her life in 15 years, he appears and she doesn't quite understand what is going on," said MacGougan.
"She has a destiny that she doesn't understand, but as the story develops, she realizes she has this big role."
While this is MacGougan's first fiction novel (she wrote two music education books during her time as a teacher in Richmond) she is already hard at work on her next piece of fiction, a "continuation of the story with the same characters."
