Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

Biography

I began my writing career with a short story, progressed to travel and historical articles, and then on to travel books. I called these books my Backroads series and in the seven of them I described what there is to see and do along the back roads of British Columbia, Alberta, the Yukon, and Alaska. I have now switched to fiction writing and am proud to be one of Books We Love Ltd published authors. Through BWL, I have had three mystery novels, Illegally Dead, The Only Shadow In The House, and Whistler's Murder published in a boxed set in what I call the Travelling Detective Series. In my fourth novel, Gold Fever I combine mystery with a little romance.
I was born in New Westminster, B.C. and raised in Edmonton, Alberta. I married soon after graduation and moved to a farm where I had two children. Over the years I worked as a bartender, hotel maid, cashier, bank teller, bookkeeper, printing press operator, meat wrapper, gold prospector, warehouse shipper, house renovator and nursing attendant. During that time I raised my two children and helped raise my three step-children.
I love change so I have moved over thirty times in my life, living on acreages and farms and in small towns and cities throughout Alberta and B.C. I now live on an acreage in the Port Alberni Valley on Vancouver Island with my husband, four female cats, and one stray male cat.
I belong to Crime Writers of Canada, Federation of B.C. Writers, the Port Alberni Arts Council and the Port Alberni Portal Players. My short story, A Capital Offense received Ascent Aspirations Magazine's first prize for flash fiction in 2010. I have since turned that story into a stage play and presented it at the Fringe Festival in Port Alberni in 2014.

Where to find Joan Donaldson-Yarmey online

Series

Canadian Historical Brides
Celebrating Canada’s 150th Birthday, #Canada150, the Canadian Historical Brides series celebrates the men and women who braved the Canadian wilderness to carve new homes and new lives out of a beautiful and wild land. There will be 12 books in the series, one for every Province in Canada and 1 for each territory (with Northwest Territories and Inuvik combined in one volume), released over an 18 month period in 2017 and 2018.
Canadian Historical Brides
Each of the Canadian Historical Brides novels features a historical event in one of the ten provinces and three territories of Canada. The books, based on actual historical times, combine fact and fiction to show how the brides and grooms, all from diverse backgrounds, join in marriage to create new lives and build a great country. Written or co-authored by some of Books We Love's Best Selling Canadian and International authors.
Cry of the Guilty-Silence of the Innocent
After two pieces of an asteroid hit their planet and knocked it off its axis, the surviving beings of the planet spent centuries rebuilding their society on the edge of disaster. The Leaders made Great Changes and Purges, constructing twenty huge cities, called megalopolises, to house their population, cultivating huge farms, and purging most of the technology so everyone had a job. The one problem the Leaders can’t control is crime. They have banished first time criminals to the destroyed former cities, now called Fringes, beside the Megalopolises. The murderers and drug and tobacco sellers are being sent to Orbital Prisons. These are set inside former spaceships orbiting above the planet. But those prisons are being overwhelmed and there is now a quest to find another planet that would support their type of species. Jawn has just been sent to the Fringe of Megalopolises One for theft. He is lost, scared, and easily robbed of his few belongings. He finds his brother and is given a quick lesson on the rules of living in the Fringe.
The Criminal Streak
Price: $6.99 USD.
Betrayed
Price: $6.99 USD.

Books

Sleuthing the Klondike
Price: $9.99 USD. Words: 72,930. Language: English. Published: April 10, 2023 by BWL Publishing Inc.. Categories: Fiction » Mystery & detective » Historical
David Gastrell is a remittance man in Canada and he is missing. His last telegram home said he was headed to Dawson City, Yukon.
Rushing the Klondike
Price: $9.99 USD. Words: 65,040. Language: English. Published: August 1, 2022 by BWL Publishing Inc.. Categories: Fiction » Romance » Historical » 20th Century
In this sequel to Romancing the Klondike, it is 1898 and Pearl Owens has been in Dawson City for two years. She’d originally come north with her cousin Emma to write about the people and places along the Yukon River for her hometown newspaper and had stayed to write about the Klondike Gold Rush and Dawson City.
Twelve Dates of Christmas
Price: $6.99 USD. Words: 54,600. Language: English. Published: October 17, 2017 by BWL Publishing Inc.. Categories: Fiction » Holiday » Christmas, Fiction » Romance » New adult
Stacy Martin, who has been married three times and had many relationships, doesn’t want a man in her life right now but her friends have other ideas. As a forty-ninth birthday present they pay for her to join three dating sites on the Internet. She just has to fill out the forms and pick the men she wants to meet. The only stipulation is that she must find a man by Christmas Eve...
Whistler's Murder
Price: $2.99 USD. Words: 86,100. Language: English. Published: September 21, 2017 by BWL Publishing Inc.. Categories: Fiction » Mystery & detective » Cozy, Fiction » Mystery & detective » Women Sleuths
Elizabeth Oliver is a travel writer who somehow gets drawn into a mystery each time she is researching an article for a travel magazine. In Whistler's Murder Elizabeth Oliver has tagged along with her best friend Sally Matthews to Whistler where Sally is attending a science fiction/fantasy writing retreat.
Romancing the Klondike, Canadian Historical Brides Yukon
Series: Canadian Historical Brides, Yukon ยท Canadian Historical Brides, Yukon. Price: $4.99 USD. Words: 71,790. Language: English. Published: May 1, 2017 by BWL Publishing Inc.. Categories: Fiction » Romance » Historical » General, Fiction » Romance » New adult
(5.00 from 1 review)
To fulfill her dream Pearl is on her to the Yukon River area with her cousin, Emma, to write articles and do illustrations about the woman and men who are looking for gold in the far north.
West to Grande Portage
Price: $6.99 USD. Words: 58,250. Language: English. Published: November 5, 2015 by BWL Publishing Inc.. Categories: Fiction » Young adult or teen » Historical, Fiction » Young adult or teen » Adventure
On his sixteenth birthday Phillipe Chabot is told that his brother-in-law has hired him to be a voyageur. He will be paddling west from Montreal to Grade Portage to trade supplies with the Indians for furs. He is overjoyed and receives all the appropriate clothing from his family as birthday gifts, even a tobacco pouch.
Betrayed
Series: Cry of the Guilty-Silence of the Innocent, Book 2. Price: $6.99 USD. Words: 56,680. Language: English. Published: September 5, 2015 by BWL Publishing Inc.. Categories: Fiction » Science fiction » Adventure, Fiction » Young adult or teen » Science Fiction
Despite a promising start, a penal colony set on a far off planet quickly disintegrates into chaos. When the weather turns stormy and snow falls, hungry and cold prisoners swarm the warehouses looking for food. The spaceship that had remained on the planet to be used for trips for supplies is attacked by the prisoners and lifts off the ground. Unable to land due to fear of being attacked again...
The Criminal Streak
Series: Cry of the Guilty-Silence of the Innocent, Book 1. Price: $6.99 USD. Words: 63,360. Language: English. Published: July 26, 2015 by BWL Publishing Inc.. Categories: Fiction » Science fiction » Space opera, Fiction » Mystery & detective » General
After two pieces of an asteroid hit their planet and knocked it off its axis, the surviving beings of the planet spent centuries rebuilding their society on the edge of disaster. The Leaders made Great Changes and Purges, constructing twenty huge cities, called megalopolises, to house their population, cultivating huge farms, and purging most of the technology so everyone had a job.
The Travelling Detective Series
Price: $6.99 USD. Words: 254,360. Language: English. Published: June 13, 2015 by BWL Publishing Inc.. Categories: Fiction » Mystery & detective » Amateur sleuth
Elizabeth Oliver is a travel writer who somehow gets drawn into a mystery each time she is researching an article for a travel magazine. "The author is a travel writer and her experience and expertise about the area shines through." Kathryn Poulin of Mysteries Etc.
Gold Fever
Price: $6.99 USD. Words: 75,850. Language: English. Published: June 13, 2015 by BWL Publishing Inc.. Categories: Fiction » Mystery & detective » Amateur sleuth, Fiction » Mystery & detective » Cozy
Boni Baldwin is taken out of the city and thrust into an environment she dislikes-- camping. Her mother, Elsie Wiggins, is on a quest to find information on her father who disappeared fifty-five years ago in the mountains of southern British Columbia and Boni is the only one of her children who is able, but reluctant, to accompany her.
West to the Bay
Price: $6.99 USD. Words: 59,470. Language: English. Published: April 19, 2015 by BWL Publishing Inc.. Categories: Fiction » Historical » Canada, Fiction » Young adult or teen » Historical
In 1750, Thomas Gunn, along with three friends, join the Hudson's Bay Company and sail from Stromness on the Orkney Islands of northern Scotland to York Factory fort on Hudson's Bay. They believe they are starting a new and exciting life in what is called Rupert's Land, but tragedy follows them, striking for the first time on the ship. At the fort Thomas finds his older brother, Edward...

Joan Donaldson-Yarmey's tag cloud

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