Her name was Mary Grace until she fell in love with the French exchange student visiting her family’s Nebraska farm. François renamed her “Aglaia” — after the beautiful Third Grace of Greek mythology — and set the seventeen-year-old girl longing for something more than her parents’ simplistic life and faith.
Now, fifteen years later, Aglaia works as a costume designer in Denver. Her budding success in the city’s posh arts scene convinces her that she’s left the country bumpkin far behind.
But “Mary Grace” has deep roots, as Aglaia learns during a business trip to Paris. Her discovery of sensual notes François jotted into a Bible during that long-ago fling, a silly errand imposed by her mother, and the scheming of her sophisticated mentor conspire to create a thirst in her soul that neither evocative daydreams nor professional success can quench.
The Third Grace is a captivating debut novel that will take you on a dual journey across oceans and time — in the footsteps of a woman torn between her rural upbringing and her search for self.
The story behind The Third Grace is an interesting one. The author Deb Elkink stood in the golden sunlight filtering through the courtyard windows of the Louvre Museum in Paris, transfixed by the life-sized marble statue grouping elevated before her. It was 1989 and she was in her glory on her long-anticipated first trip to Europe, surrounded by the culture of France – its tastes and sounds and smells. But this quintessential moment of discover in the Louvre imprinted itself on her very essence.
“’The Three Graces’ was sculpted in 1831 by James Pradier in celebration of the mythological Greek Charites said to preside over the arts,” she says. “The figure on the left was named Thalia; grasping one end of a swag of flowers that encircled her sisters, she was goddess of the garden and all that flourished in nature’s abundance. Euphrosyne, on the right, was the pleasure-giver, goddess of mirth and dance, the life of the party. The middle Grace (and namesake of my own main character, Aglaia) was the brightly shining goddess of beauty and keeper of treasures; she stepped lightly on a jewelry box like a maiden at the beach sinking her toe in the sand. She held her chin high, gaze cast heavenward in seeking the radiance of the sun or of her father, Zeus.”
Once she saw the statue, she knew she had found the icon for her novel, The Third Grace.
“All those years ago I’d been thinking about what I’d write when I had the chance—when my young family wouldn’t require so much of my attention,” she says. “This trip with my mom to what became my favourite city in the world was a delightful diversion from my busy domestic life as a cattle rancher’s wife on the Canadian prairies. I had a manuscript of sorts already, but it was a scrawny affair cobbled together without any real direction. Discovering the Graces reinvigorated my passion in the writing project and sent me back home with intentions to start anew.
“But good intentions are not known to pave the road to instant success, and it took me another two decades to give voice to the Graces. I worked hard at it: I finished off home-educating three kids and, when they went on to success in high school and then university classrooms, I returned to studies of my own, graduating with a master’s degree in theology. I paid my dues: I freelanced articles, and wrote for a quarterly, and edited for academics, and honed research and composition skills until I couldn’t defer any longer. In 2008 I submitted my 60,000-word story to an agent, who contracted me and immediately insisted I add 40,000 more words! The Third Grace was eventually placed with a small publisher in North Carolina, printed in paper and eBook format in December 2011, and went on to win a coveted Canadian award in June 2012.
“All of my sensual experiences in Paris—eating succulent treats from a chocolaterie, listening to a violinist busking in the Métro, being enveloped by the perfume of a passer-by on the Champs-Elysées—make their way into my novel, because they’ve made their way into my heart.”
You can visit Deb’s website at www.debelkink.com or pick up a copy of her book at Amazon.
