.jpg)
The Blue Ridge Mountains offer an enchanting view to both visitors and locals alike, and their beauty was the inspiration for a scene in a recently published book. Mary Locke Jolley, a former resident of Lexington, featured the Greenhill Cemetery, located in Buena Vista, in her middle-grade fiction book “Next, the Necromancer.”
“Next, the Necromancer” is Jolley’s second book in the Kenworthy Cure series. The series features a multigenerational family, and follows the adventures of a 12-year-old enchantress and her brother and cousin. The enchantress’s cousin is from Buena Vista, so Buena Vista is mentioned briefly in the first book in the series, “First the Conjurer.” The second book not only mentions Buena Vista, but the main climatic scene happens in the Greenhill Cemetery. According to Jolley, the scene “ties a lot of loose ends together.”
Jolley chose the Greenhill Cemetery because she couldn’t stop thinking about it. She knew a big scene needed to happen in a cemetery, so she made sure it happened here in Buena Vista.
Jolley lived in Buena Vista when she attended Southern Virginia University for her undergraduate degree, and she returned to teach writing at SVU after finishing her MFA in creative writing in California. She lived in Buena Vista a total of seven years, and when she taught at SVU, she would pass the cemetery every day on her way home. It was one of her favorite places to drive past. Jolley now lives in California, and has been there since 2022. Since moving there, she has published the first two novels in the Kenworth Cure series.
She started writing the first book in the series 13 years ago in her advanced creative writing class, and she finished the first draft for National Novel Writing Month in 2010. During the next 13 years, she revised it off and on, but decided to publish it once she moved to California. She explained, “Cause it’s been 13 years and this is just silly.”
She then wrote and edited the second book in six months. The books are selfpublished through Amazon and the Barnes and Noble website. In the meantime, she has finished two other manuscripts that are currently unpublished.
olley focused on publishing this series first partly because of its genre as middle-grade fiction fantasy. Middle-grade fiction fantasy books are written for children 8 to 12 years old and often feature fun adventures. These types of books are what originally got Jolley into reading when she was 10 years old, and she explained, “I felt like for my first book I published I should do middle grade because I wanted to kind of pay it forward to help other kids to get excited about reading.”
Through writing and public speaking, Jolley works to promote children’s literacy. She has run several workshops that deal with literacy and include reading and writing activities for children and adults. She is also reaching out so she can speak at local libraries and schools.
Jolley is currently working to publish the third book in the series. She also has several other manuscripts that she is working to publish. To learn more about her stories, visit marylockejolley. com.
