My Life Off-Key

By Gail Anderson-Dargatz

Key Selling Points

• A teen learns that she has a biological father who isn’t the dad she grew up with and that her mom has kept this secret Jen's whole life.
• This story explores family dynamics as well as themes of identity and belonging.
• The author has written a number of short novels for striving readers, including these hi-lo books in the Orca Currents line: Iggy’s World and Bigfoot Crossing , both JLG Gold Standard Selections, and The Ride Home , which was shortlisted for a BC and Yukon Book Prize.
• Although her own story is different, the author drew from personal experience, as she too grew up with one dad, only to discover as a teen that she also had a biological father who wasn't the dad she grew up with. She and her birth dad both loved to sing.
• Enhanced features (dyslexia-friendly font, cream paper, larger trim size) to increase reading accessibility for dyslexic and other striving readers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
• Release date: Feb 13, 2024
• ISBN: 9781459834804

Gail Anderson-Dargatz

GAIL ANDERSON-DARGATZ’s first novel, The Cure for Death by Lightning, was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and won the UK’s Betty Trask Award, the BC Book Prize for Fiction and the Vancity Book Prize. Her second novel, A Recipe for Bees, was nominated for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. The Spawning Grounds was nominated for the Sunburst Award and the Ontario Library Association Evergreen Award and short-listed for the Canadian Authors Association Award for Fiction. Her thriller, The Almost Wife, hit the Canadian bestseller lists in 2021. She taught for nearly a decade in the MFA program in creative writing at the University of British Columbia and now mentors writers online. Gail Anderson-Dargatz lives in the Shuswap region of British Columbia.