Would you like to invite me to your book club?
If I’m available, I’d be delighted to pop in by FaceTime, Skype, WhatsApp, Teams, Zoom, or however else you’d like me to join (even in person, if your group is local!) to chat about my novel. If you have a burning question, post it on Instagram and tag me @shelley_wood_author. I’m not online all the time, but I promise to check at regular intervals and I’ll do my best to answer.
Some conversation starters:
1) This story is identical, but the title and covers are different in the US (The Leap Year Gene of Kit McKinley) and Canada (The Leap Year Gene). Which do you like better and why?
2) The novel is told in four parts, from four different perspectives: why did the author make that choice? What does the reader get out of this approach? What is inevitably lost?
3) Kit is born at a time when eugenics is being widely embraced by thinkers, scientists, and politicians but the concept is widely rejected after World War II. In many ways, eugenics exists in many forms today, they are deemed more socially acceptable. What good can come of this? What bad?
4) Family is a strong theme running through this book, but Kit’s ‘family’ is in some ways as unusual as she is. How does The Leap Year Gene both uphold and subvert the notion of a normal family?
5) Kit’s family’s instinct it to protect her at all costs: what are the different ways in which they succeed and fail?
6) As a baby, Kit seems to age one year for every four, like a literal leap year baby. But as time goes on and she has more time in the world to learn and observe, her “true” age becomes “somewhere in between,” as Ernest puts it. Discuss how this plays out, in her life.
7) ***SPOILER ALERT*** By the end of the novel, Kit has the option of learning more about her leap year gene and, potentially, fixing it. Put yourself in her shoes: what would you do?