Two Local-Author Signings, One Day! Only @ DDR Books

DDR Books has a blockbuster holiday event Saturday., Dec. 10—two local-author book signings on one day, at our shop in Downtown Watertown!

The first signing of the day is noon-2 pm, featuring the historical-romance novel, “Proving Her Claim,” by CK Van Dam.

This tale of a spirited woman homesteader who embarks on a courageous cross-cultural love affair is the debut novel of Van Dam, a retired journalist now settled near Watertown.

The second signing at 2-4 pm showcases the supernatural suspense novel, “The List: Sinister Series Book One,” by Tracy (York) Gilles (pen name Taylor Knight), a Watertown native.

“Proving Her Claim” is the story of Anna Olson, a “girl homesteader,” who staked a claim on the wild, open prairie. In her quest to start a new life, Anna faces the struggles all homesteaders encountered, from plowing the tough, prairie sod to surviving the brutal Dakota winters.

As one of the white settlers invading Native American lands, Anna also had to learn to live peacefully with her Lakota Sioux neighbors. Among those neighbors was Two Hawks MacKenzie, a man who straddled two worlds. The son of a Scots trapper and Lakota woman, Two Hawks was intrigued by the feisty, blond-haired homesteader. This is a love story as well as a story of fortitude and courage, as Anna and Two Hawks come to understand how their two worlds can live in peace.

While most little girls wanted to be nurses or teachers, Van Dam wanted to be a writer. She read voraciously, starting with Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series and moving on to more worldly authors such as Leon Uris and James Michener. She’s now come full circle, enjoying works by Midwestern authors including William Kent Krueger and John Sandford. With degrees in Journalism and History, her work involves the people who built our country, particularly the women.

After working in public relations, Van Dam returned to her hometown of Sioux Falls, where she worked as a copywriter, producing commercials, long-form videos and promotional videos. She then built with a partner and sold a successful nationwide advertising agency, selling her portion recently, leaving her time to travel, read, and write. The idea for “Proving Her Claim” began formulating during a vacation in the Black Hills. As a life-long South Dakotan, she loves open prairies – the horizons that go on forever. South Dakota is a land dotted with few trees, such as the sturdy cottonwoods featured in the novel.

“The List: Sinister Series Book One” is the newest supernatural-suspense novel by Tracy (York) Gilles (pen name Taylor Knight).

“The List: Sinister Series Book One” is filled with exciting twists and turns between the current day and threatening events that occurred in the late 1800s to Dalton and Cassandra Carlson–the young, wealthy couple who had it all, or so it seemed until they fell victim to a horrible evil that infested their annual Halloween party in 1894. The darkness is contained for over a hundred years until greed and self-serving acts release it onto a new set of victims. Can the beautiful new analytical intern, Allison Monroe, and the emotionally scarred head of the CSI in New York, Adam Sherard, unravel the mystery before they too become victims of The List?

Tracy (York) Gilles (aka Taylor Knight and T.L. York) is from Watertown. She has lived in the Fargo-Moorhead area since 1995 with her 3 children and husband. Gilles is also a movie-script writer, a self-publishing consultant, and she has her own podcast, “Keeping it Real with Taylor Knight,” on PodBean. Her latest book is “The List: Sinister Series Book One,” and she is currently writing its sequel, “The Farm House: Sinister Series Book Two.” Her first book, “Universe” (named “Universal Intelligence” in its first edition), was released in paperback/Kindle in January 2021.  It is also available on Audible since June 2021.

Signed copies of both books, and Gilles’ other works, are available at DDR Books, 7 S. Maple, in Downtown Watertown.