FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
[May 15, 2025 — Toronto, ON] – Jay Lang’s new novel Dancing Mary, out today, brings an eerie and emotional story rooted in British Columbia’s folklore to readers across the country. The novel will be available through Amazon and other major retailers, with physical copies shipping on June 1st. Commissioned as part of a province-by-province literary project named Canadiana Historical Paranormal, Dancing Mary represents British Columbia’s contribution to this chilling and thoughtful series, with each book penned by a different author to capture the unique essence of their region.
In Dancing Mary, Lang takes readers deep into the mist-shrouded landscape of the Comox Valley, where an old ghost story refuses to fade. Based on true events, the novel revives the tale of a young K’ómoks First Nation woman, renamed Mary by early settlers, who was tragically betrayed and murdered. Her spirit, locals say, lives on in the form of a ghostly blue light, often seen swaying through the trees or floating along Comox Road. The last known sighting occurred in 1914 when a soldier on bicycle encountered the light and was consumed by an unnatural chill that remained with him for the rest of his life.
But Lang’s narrative digs deeper than the folklore. Rather than simply recounting an old ghost story, she intertwines it with the contemporary journey of a grieving father and daughter. After the suicide of their wife and mother, the pair return to the Comox Valley to honour her final wishes. What begins as a quiet trip of remembrance becomes an unexpected confrontation with the past when the daughter befriends local youths who promise to help her contact her mother in the afterlife. As the veil between worlds thins, the father finds himself desperate to protect his daughter from forces he doesn’t understand. A mysterious woman appears to him during his solitary beach walks, warning him that his daughter has opened a doorway and something far older, and more dangerous, has come through.
Early reviews have also praised the novel for its atmospheric tension and emotional gravity: Dancing Mary is a fascinating, haunting story… One of those books that once you start reading you won’t be able to put down.
Lang’s prose captures both the grandeur and the isolation of the Vancouver Island coastline, using the region’s lush wilderness and dark history to create a backdrop that is at once beautiful and unsettling. The novel delicately explores themes of grief, generational trauma, and the spiritual echoes that linger in the land itself. Through the father and daughter’s dual perspectives, readers are drawn into a world where the supernatural feels entirely possible, and where healing can only begin once the truth is faced.
In writing Dancing Mary, Lang has crafted a narrative that honours untold Indigenous stories, acknowledges the pain of personal loss, and questions the cost of ignoring the voices of the past. Her careful blend of the historical and the spectral gives the novel a quiet power, as she sheds light on an injustice long buried while crafting a compelling family drama.
Born and raised between Read Island and Vancouver Island, Jay Lang brings intimate knowledge of the region’s terrain and mystique to every page. Her background in television and film sharpened her storytelling instincts, but it is her deep love of nature and solitude that gives Dancing Mary its quiet, haunting depth. Now living a quieter life, Lang spends her days hiking, writing, and reflecting on the power of place.
With Dancing Mary, she invites readers to join her on a journey that is as unsettling as it is unforgettable, where the lines between history and myth, life and death, are never quite clear.
For those drawn to stories where the past refuses to stay buried, Dancing Mary offers a vivid, immersive experience that lingers long after the final page.
READ DANCING MARY NOW: [https://www.amazon.com/Dancing...]
