Author Delaney Green

Delaney Green’s just-released Jem, a Fugitive from London follows an orphan girl growing up in 18th-century London who has a big problem: She has inherited magic from her parents that she can’t ignore and can’t control. “Second sight” lets Jem hear animals’ thoughts and diagnose diseases via touch, but it also forces her spirit into birds, leaving her body behind and helpless.

Jem is a strong character with a big story to tell, and Delaney Green is definitely up for the task. For each book, Green conducts research on all the historical and scientific details she includes, down to the first time words were used – if a word wasn’t in use at the time of the story, Green doesn’t include it.

Jem, a Fugitive from London is the second in a planned series of six books. In the first book in the series, Jem, a Girl of London, Jem loses her family but is accepted as an apprentice to a London physician. She gains a friend in an apothecary, and she becomes a student of American Benjamin Franklin. In the newly published second book, Jem’s powers are beginning to interrupt her life to a point that she is in danger. Jem also learns through Franklin’s sleuthing that her grandparents are very important people who are trying to find her. On top of that, a stranger named Patch has been hunting Jem for a purpose nobody can figure out. Ultimately, the only way for Jem to solve her problems is to leave London behind and travel west to Cornwall to study magic with a wise woman on desolate Bodmin moor.

The mastermind behind this historical fantasy is Delaney Green. Green, a former teacher, revealed that Jem came to her in a dream shortly after playing a game of “what if’s” with her students. She said, “A couple of months later I had this really intense dream about this girl who was with a physician, attending George III, and I couldn’t get that girl out of my mind.”

Jem is a strong character with a big story to tell, and Green is definitely up for the task. For each book, Green conducts research on all the historical and scientific details she includes, down to the first time words were used – if a word wasn’t in use at the time of the story, Green doesn’t include it. In September, Green’s research will take her to London, Cornwall, and Ireland, where Jem’s story takes place. Green plans to donate signed copies of Jem, a Fugitive from London to libraries there. This combination of in-depth research and following the trail of “what if’s” of Jem’s story often keeps Green motivated. “Besides,” she says, “I know where Jem ends up, and I have to get her there.”

The Jem saga and its ties to Green’s days as a teacher are strong. The interior design and cover of Fugitive were created by Dan Thiede, a local designer and one of Green’s former students. After spending some time on the East Coast, Thiede has returned to Eau Claire to found Kaze Studios. Thiede’s cover design gives readers a sense of hope for Jem, featuring stunning blue lights over the horizon in a rugged Cornish landscape. They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but this one is definitely going to catch your eye.

In future installments of Jem’s story, Green plans to sail Jem across the Atlantic to Philadelphia to stay with Ben Franklin’s wife, Deborah, and meet some of Franklin’s contemporaries, including John Bartram, whose botanical garden is the oldest in North America and is still open to visitors. Jem also will continue her education with New York’s Seneca Indians and with Native Americans further west.

You can find copies of both Jem: A Girl of London, and Jem: A Fugitive from London in at The Local Store and Crossroad Books in Eau Claire, and online at Amazon.com.