It's Here!

By Happenstance: The Stories of My Parents Before They Were My Parents

Two years ago this month, I began asking my mom questions to learn more about her nursing career. Who could have known those conversations would lead where they have.

The last two weeks have been spent finalizing the formatting for By Happenstance: The Stories of My Parents Before They Were My Parents for print and ebooks, and booking signing events and podcast talks. A wild ride.

Here are some project stats:

• 60+ hours of interviews

• 100+ draft chapters emailed back and forth

• 4 cataract surgeries

• 419 pages written

• 60 photos included

• 0 new apartments

After all that, I’m so pleased to say the book is now available for pre-order — kind of!

One stat I missed:

• 0 working pre-order links for the paperback version in North America — yet.

There is an issue with Amazon.ca and Amazon.com links, but I have been assured it is front of mind with Mr. Bezos, and his team is working around the clock to fix it.

The stories are available individually as ebooks, or in a special tête-bêche edition — one book that holds both Tricia’s and Walter’s stories. Read one, flip it over, and find the other.

(Forgive the screenshot video - I grabbed this during the digital review process of setting up the book. When we get copies of the book in hand — next week, if all goes well — we will make updated videos to showcase the tête-bêche format.)

For those of you who are new to this project, here is a brief description of my parents’ stories:

Walter didn’t set out to become a bush pilot. Tricia didn’t plan to leave Liverpool for the Canadian wilderness. Neither of them could have predicted where their separate journeys would lead — or that those journeys would one day intersect in the remote community of Telegraph Creek, British Columbia.

By Happenstance brings together two complete and interconnected stories: Walter’s, shaped by the orchards of the Okanagan Valley, the rough land of Vancouver Island, and the vast skies of Canada’s North; and Tricia’s, forged in postwar Liverpool, an unplanned path into a nursing career, that would eventually lead her to a poorly stocked clinic at a cannery on British Columbia’s west coast, and beyond.

The stories are also available individually as ebooks. While they belong together — Tricia and Walter did find each other in a fly-in-only village in British Columbia, after all — each is also a stand-alone story in its own right. These pre-order links DO work properly, so you can reserve your copies now. Both will be available for download on May 6th, when the book releases.

Why pre-order rather than wait?

Since everything runs on algorithms — especially online sales platforms — pre-orders help the book gain visibility, and be shown to more people on release day. Early momentum matters for a new book. So, if you plan to buy it anyway, buying it early genuinely helps.

Pre-order your ebook copy of Tricia’s Story!

Pre-order your ebook copy of Walter’s Story!

If you are in the UK or EU, where the Amazon links are operational, you CAN pre-order the paperback version of the book from your regional Amazon. Here in Portugal, Amazon Spain is the easiest way to order.

In the UK, Amazon is an option, as is The Great British Book Shop.

And finally…

If you’re in the Kootenays or the Lower Mainland in British Columbia, here are the upcoming in-person book talks and signings, where you’ll also be able to buy the book:

• May 22, 2026 – Notably, A Book Lover’s Emporium, Nelson, BC

• May 28, 2026 – Balfour Evangelical Covenant Church, Balfour, BC (this is my parents’ church, and there will be more details coming soon)

• June 6, 2026 – Groove Cat Books & Records, New Westminster, BC

Please check my website for updates, I’d love to see you in person.

---

For a project that started as a small curiosity about my mom’s nursing career, it has turned into quite a thing. I certainly learned about her career, yes — but I also learned about her life, and the experiences that shaped her.

With Dad, I’d already heard a lot of the highlight reel stories. What surprised me the most, working on his story, was how much I learned about his family, and his role within it.

Neither of my parents followed a traditional path, and both were independent from a young age. In learning more about them, I learned more about myself. In many ways, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, as they say.

What stories are waiting in your family? What might you learn — about them, and possibly yourself — if you started asking questions about the times around and in between the highlight reel moments?

You won’t know until you ask.