Jo Dery makes her impressive book debut with this collection of new stories, Quietly Sure - Like the Keeper of a Great Secret. Set in a personal world of seekers and guides with parallel and intertwining tales, she has created an engaging work of strange beauty.

Her four main characters search for an understanding of themselves and their purpose through their peculiar encounters with each other and the forces of nature (including a hungry spider, spectacled bears, a stinging snake, a lost lizard, and a reflective moon).

With a modern folk style of drawing and boundless imagination, Jo is able to bring forth a stunningly detailed mythic world. Her background as a screenprinter lends images a depth of field that brings visual richness to each page.

Things start off with the dispersal of some vicious seeds and wind their way through six stories of new discoveries, things gained and lost, new partnerships, and lessons learned. But like the keeper of a great secret, we wouldn't want to give away much more -- the splendor is in the journey.

88 pages