Girl Runner

Carrie Snyder

Aganetha Smart was a poor farm girl who could run like the wind but this was rural Canada in the 1920s when girls didn't run or dream of the Olympics and they certainly didn't win.
Aganetha Smart was about to change all that.
Girl Runner Carrie Snyder's debut novel is the story of Aganetha Smart a former Olympic athlete who was famous in the 1920s but now at age 104 lives in a nursing home alone and forgotten by history. For Aganetha a competitive and ambitious woman her life remains present and unfinished in her mind.
When her quiet life is disturbed by the unexpected arrival of two young strangers Aganetha begins to reflect on her childhood in rural Ontario and her struggles to make an independent life for herself in the city.
Without revealing who they are or what they may want from her the visitors take Aganetha on an outing from the nursing home. As ready as ever for adventure Aganetha's memories are stirred when the pair return her to the family farm where she was raised. The devastation of WWI and the Spanish flu epidemic the optimism of the 1920s and the sacrifices of the 1930s play out in Aganetha's mind as she wrestles with the confusion and displacement of the present.
Part historical page-turner part contemporary mystery Girl Runner is an engaging and endearing story about family ambition athletics and the dedicated pursuit of one's passions. It is also ultimately about a woman who follows the singular heart-breaking and inspiring course of her life until the very end.

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