Book Signing for Local Author's Debut Novel

Barnes & Noble at Green Oak Village Place will host a signing event from 5:30-6:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 25 for local author Amy Ackley’s debut young adult novel, Sign Language, released this month by Viking Juvenile (Penguin USA). 

Sign Language, winner of the first Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award for Young Adult Fiction, is drawn from the loss of Ackley’s father to kidney cancer when she was a young teenager.

It explores the changing family dynamics that occur when a family member is terminally ill, and how each person deals with loss in his or her own way. 

The novel follows the main character, a young teenaged girl, through the stages of grief, a path that runs through three years of her life and leads her to understand the unbreakable bonds of family.

Sign Language has received early praise from literary critics, including a highlighted review by VOYA (Voice for Youth Advocates), the library magazine serving those who serve young adults: “This is an amazing debut novel … it is both moving and realistic, a result of well-crafted family relationships.”

Ackley lives in Brighton, Michigan with her husband and three daughters, and is hard at work on her next novel.

For more information about Sign Language or to contact the author, please visit www.amyackley.com.