University of the Ozarks alumna and accomplished young adults author Ginny Myers Sain ’95 will present a book signing for her fourth book, When the Bones Sing, at 6 p.m. on Monday, March 10, in the University’s Robson Library.
The public is invited to attend the event and there will be copies of the book available to purchase.
Sain is the New York Times bestselling author of Dark and Shallow Lies, Secrets So Deep, and One Last Breath. She graduated from Ozarks in 1995 with a degree in theatre. She also worked at the University as director of the Walton Arts & Ideas Series from 1997 to 2012 and ran a youth theatre company on campus for many years.
Published by Penguin Random House and set to be released on March 4, “When the Bones Sing” is described as a “southern gothic supernatural thriller about a teen girl in a small Ozark town who can hear the bones of the dead.”
A native of Oklahoma, Sain said her latest book is a “love letter to the Ozark Mountains and the state I called home for a big and important chunk of my life.”
“The wild and beautiful Arkansas Ozarks are steeped in folklore, mystery, and magic,” Sain writes in the book’s Acknowledgments. “One of the things I loved most about living there, was the idea that in those ancient hills just outside my sleepy college town, anything could happen. To University of the Ozarks, the institution that really made me who I am, and to the people I met on that campus over the many years I studied and later worked, taught and directed there … friends and colleagues and so many theatre students who became family … this book is for every single one of you.”
Her book-signing event at U of O is a part of a 35-venue tour in Florida, Arkansas and Oklahoma.
When the Bones Sing synopsis: “The past three years have been tough for Lucifer’s Creek, Arkansas, a small town quietly tucked away in the Ozark mountains. More than two dozen people have disappeared on the local hiking trails; there one moment, gone the next, not a trace left behind, until their buried bodies are discovered. 17-year-old Dovie doesn’t believe in magic even though she comes from a long line of women who can hear the bones of the dead sing, and for the past few years the bones have been crooning nonstop, calling out to Dovie to dig them up. Some of the old-timers believe that it’s the monstrous Ozarks howler snatching people off the Aux Arc Trail. Well Dovie doesn’t believe in the howler, and she doesn’t believe her best friend Lo when he tells her he is being haunted by dark shadows. All she believes in is her talent that guides the local sheriff to the bones when they begin their song, then reuniting the dead with their families to give them some peace. Lo doesn’t know peace, though. The shadows follow him everywhere. He soon learns they’re the murdered hikers and they want answers. But the truth of their deaths isn’t buried with their bones; it’s hidden somewhere deep in the hills. And Lo and Dovie must unearth it before anyone else is killed.”
Sain resides in St. Cloud, Florida, and has spent the past 20 years working closely with teens as a director and acting instructor in a program designed for high school students seriously intent on pursuing a career in the professional theatre. Having grown up in deeply rural America, she is interested in telling stories about resilient kids who come of age in remote settings.
In addition to being a New York Times bestseller, Sain is an Indie Bookstore Bestseller, a Barnes & Noble YA Pick of the Month, an Amazon Editor’s Pick, and a 2022 CRYSTAL KITE award winner from the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Her books are available world-wide in more than 10 countries. More information about Sain can be found website at ginnymyerssain.com.
Topics: Alumni Stories