On Thin Ice

Adrienne is the quintessential daredevil and a leader of her generation. Why? Adrienne would rather try anything once, so she won’t have to say: “I wished I had tried that, but was too afraid”. Her stories and those of her friends are in many ways quite typical for many baby boomers, but only Adrienne with her fortitude and independence would cross the Atlantic to join a younger man practically unknown to her and much younger. Only she could start her own matchmaking agency after her divorce when on-line dating did not bring her the results she wanted. At age sixty, what will Adrienne do next to find a purpose in her life when retirement looms with an empty nest and no partner? This is a collection of 12 interrelated stories of Adrienne and her friends, through relationships and break-ups to finding her passion in life after 50.

Adrienne's journey takes the reader from the discovery of passion and ecstasy in her twenties during the late sixties, to her first broken heart, from a her divorce, to her first dating experiences on line in her fifties, and so much more, until a reconciliation with the past and her future life end the collection on a positive and hopeful note. On Thin Ice is a novella of about 60,000 words in twelve interconnected short stories about Adrienne, an immigrant, and her friends. This book is a fictional journey of a life of relationships and daring moves--walking on thin ice--and may inspire baby boomers in their quest for meaning in their lives where marriage Till Death Do Us Part is not so common anymore. Readers of Adrienne’s generation, with higher expectations for longevity and hedonistic pleasures than any generation before, will be entertained and moved by Adrienne‘s adventures in Europe and in western Canada and be uplifted by its optimistic message.

The author Johanna van Zanten was born in the Netherlands where she obtained a Fine Arts masters degree in Amsterdam. She worked with heroin addicts in a treatment centre for seven years, then immigrated in her early thirties to Canada (Alberta), married, had a daughter, and worked with First Nations in Alberta’s north. She then moved to BC and obtained a Bachelor’s of Social Work degree as a mature student, after which she worked for many years as a social worker in BC’s Okanagan Valley. Johanna discovered her passion for creative writing some years ago, completed intensive summer courses with authors Laisha Rosnau at UBC-Okanagan and Dona Sturmanis at Okanagan College, and participated in the short story contest of UBC/CBC/OC; she was short listed for her story Fort Good Hope in 2011. This story was also published in Maple Tree Literary Supplement on line in the May-Sep 2011 issue.