Book Tour| Adventures of Mary Jane – Hope Jahren

It’s been quite some time, but today I’m back with a book tour for Adventures of Mary Jane. This tour is being hosted by TBR and Beyond Tours and I’m excited to share my interview with the author today. So keep on reading to find out more!

Adventures of Mary Jane by Hope Jahren
Genre: Young Adult Historical Fiction
Publishing Date: June 25, 2024 

In this brand new reimagining, Mary Jane—the red-headed spark from Mark Twains, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, who stole Huck’s heart in just 30 pages—comes to life with her own story of adventuring down the Mississippi River in the 1840’s. 

Meet Mary Jane Guild — she’s on a dangerous and unpredictable adventure down the Mississippi River — and she’ll steal Huck Finn’s heart along the way. 

In these chapters you’ll come to know the real Mary a girl on her own dangerous and unpredictable journey down the Mississippi River in pre–Civil War America. Equipped with an uncanny ability for mathematics, a talent for sewing, and a bale of beaver skins, Mary Jane navigates deadly illnesses, angry mobs, treacherous landowners, outright thieves and swindlers, and more than a thousand miles of muddy water. What’s more, she thrives in the face of these challenges, thanks to support from a caring boat captain, generous neighbors, a cheery peddler, a chosen family, a loyal and loving dog, and two hardworking horses. Traveling solo requires Mary Jane to grow up fast, but it ultimately leads her to a new resilience, a love of adventure, deep and enduring sisterhood, and a blue-eyed, pony-tailed boy she can’t stop thinking about. 

Jahren offers a wealth of layered characters and deeply researched, authentic details of changing times in the North and South. Using the language and style of Twain and shifting the point of view to a smart and determined young woman, she explores timeless themes of duty, family, romance, and betrayal, with grit and courage at the core. 

Book Links

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Author Interview

What inspired you to write Adventures of Mary Jane?

Like a lot of GenX, I read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in high school, then in college, then to my own kiddo, then to myself again for fun … and every single time, I had my doubts about Mary Jane.  She appears near the end of the book, for just a few pages … but the things she does and says seem fishy to me … like we don’t know the whole story here, like she might be covering something up?  I mean, after all there’s a fresh dead body in her house … so finally, after puzzling on it for 20 years, I set out to discover who she really was.

What has been your favourite part of your publishing journey so far?

The research, definitely.  When I decided that I wanted to know Mary Jane’s story, I knew that I would have to know as much about her world as I possibly could.  What did she do all day?  What did she eat?  What was the weather like where she was?  What did things cost?  What did people do for jobs?  For a very long time, like years, I woke up each morning, asked myself a question, then spent all day in the library trying to figure it out.  It was so much fun to live like that!  I can’t wait to start doing it again.

If you were a character in Adventures of Mary Jane, which character would you be?

I think my personality is most like Joanna’s – she is one of Mary Jane’s two cousins and one of the main characters of the book.  Joanna is less adventurous than Mary Jane, she’s more introverted and generally sceptical about what’s going on around her.  She loves animals, especially Cherry the dog – she’s curious and wants to know everything about what interests her.

Describe Adventures of Mary Jane in five words or less.

Girl out on her own!

What is your favorite quote from Adventures of Mary Jane?

Mary Jane: “It’s boys that travel seeking adventure. Girls travel seeking safety.”

What do you hope readers take away from your story?

I hope they make friends with Mary Jane, that she becomes one of the people in their lives.  Mary Jane has an awful lot on her plate, and she could really use some friends.  I hope readers will consider taking her in.

Could you give us 5 random facts about Adventures of Mary Jane (think the story, writing, publishing, anything that comes to mind)?

Mary Jane’s story lines up exactly with Huck’s, we just see way more of her than we do in his story.

Mary Jane’s scenes with Huck are just as Twain wrote them, exact same dialogue and all.

The first draft of Adventures of Mary Jane was way too long.  The second draft was cut down by more than 40% (I calculated it).

All of the animals that Mary Jane comes across – the 2 dogs, the cat, the rabbit, the three horses – are based on pets that I have known or owned.

Mary Jane’s accent (the way she says stuff) is the exact same as mine, sort of like how they talk in the show “Fargo”.

Tour Schedule

Amazing bloggers and bookstagrammers are also talking about this book during the tour. Click here for the tour schedule to check out their posts.

About the Author

HOPE JAHREN is a teacher, scientist, and book lover living in Oslo, Norway. Recognized as one Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People, Jahren is the recipient of three Fulbright Awards and was named one of the Brilliant 10 by Popular Science magazine in 2005. She is the author of two works of nonfiction: The Story of More and Lab Girl, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography. Adventures of Mary Jane is her first work of fiction. 

Author Links

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Goodreads

So that’s it for my tour stop today! I love learning a little bit more about the authors behind a book. If you could interview an author, who would you want to interview? Let me know in the comments! I’d love to hear from you.

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