This has made my month!

Call it my late Christmas present or my early Dia de los Reyes gift, I'm calling it awesome. After a few days of tracking and pining, my copy of Annabel by Kathleen Winter finally arrived in the mail. Tagged along with it was my Amazon Kindle!!!! Okay, we all know what the major joy of that package was; I just didn't want Kathleen Winter's book to pale in comparison. 

There have been several instances in my life when I denied ever wanting a reading device. I even mention my conversation with my old creative writing professor - Rene Saldana, Jr. - about the subject. I don't think this device would keep me from buying hard copies, but it will reduce my spending on public domain novels - as they are free on Amazon (for the most part, anyway). I'll write more on this subject later.

Moving on, I'm excited to read Annabel once I get around to completing Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice. The inside flap reads as follows:

A #1 best seller in Canada, award winning author Kathleen Winter's debut novel is an intimate portrait of the family of a mixed-gender child born into a remote, blue-collar seaside town in Eastern Canada.

In 1968, into the devastating, beautiful landscape of Labrador, a child is born: a baby who appears to be neither fully boy nor fully girl, but both at once. Only three people are privy to the secret - the baby's parents, Jacinta and Treadway, and their trusted neighbor and midwife, Thomasina. Though Treadway makes the difficult decision to raise the child as a boy named Wayne, the women continue to quietly nurture the boy's female side. And as Wayne grows into adulthood within the hypermasculine hunting society of his father, his shadow-self, a girl he thinks of as "Annabel," is never entirely extinguished.

 When Wayne finally escapes the confines of his hometown and settles in S. John's, the anonymity of the city grants him the freedom to confront his dual identity. His ultimate choice will once again call into question the integrity and allegiance of those he loves most.

 It's no surprised that the novel caught my attention. While not directly related to my current writing project, it does - I hope - lend me some insight on the subject of gender identity. Annabel was first published in 2010. This edition was published by Black Cat, a paperback original imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.