Ivy Leigh is caught between the child she was before her mother died and the person grief is forcing her to become. Her attempts to hold tight to muddy adventures, woodland discoveries, and the memories attached to ordinary family objects unfold alongside nightmares, changing friendships, and a bully whose behavior may be more complicated than Ivy first believes. Ivy Leigh Ever After places compassion at the center of that upheaval without removing the anger, confusion, and flashes of humor that belong to Ivy’s particular way of facing the world.
Young Adult
Date Published: January 30, 2026
Publisher: Small Circles Press
When Ivy Leigh's mom dies, her life turns upside down. Another year has passed, and she wants to remain the girl she once was, mucking in the mud, hiking in the woods, chasing after frogs and butterflies, all the little girl things she did when Mom sometimes came along with her. Now, Ivy is eleven turning twelve. The past year was marked with an awful set of nightmares and a huge hole she can't quite find a way to fill.
Even greater trouble arrives when Ivy finds out her arch nemesis, Winona, starts bullying her. Soon, Ivy will learn that like her mom had told her, even bullies have backstories too.
With a family and friends-Ivy is surrounded by a small circle of people who love her. She remembers what her mom always taught her-to spread that love, to be kind and compassionate above all else, no matter what challenges in life arise.
Ivy’s grief is expressed through the things she cannot bear to lose: familiar outdoor rituals, her mother’s garden gnome, and the version of herself that existed before the family changed. That attention to tangible memories gives her emotional struggle a shape younger readers can recognize without reducing it to a lesson.
The novel also places Ivy’s conflict with Winona beside the compassion her mother taught her. Understanding that a bully may have a backstory does not erase the harm being done, but it asks Ivy to consider what kindness means when extending it feels difficult. Peachy, an imperious grandmother, and the disorder surrounding a secret dog add humor and movement to a story grounded in bereavement, friendship, and the uncertain passage from eleven to twelve.
Chapter One: The Package
“She’s coming for you, Peachy.”
He leaped off the bed and scrambled toward me. Together, we stood at the window, watching. I’d heard the roar of that muffler. The sound of the crash. It all spelled trouble. Up until now, Peachy was unknown to her. But I knew it would never stay that way. Dad was at work. She always knew the perfect time to strike.
“That was Mom’s gnome!” Nat’s shriek pierced the air, and I knew this was going to be bad. I took the stairs two at a time, in boxers and a tank top, with Peachy trailing behind. It was early on a Saturday, Viv was still in bed, and I hadn’t even brushed my teeth. But that never mattered to Grandma. This was a surprise attack; we were in her sights, and she had a total takeover in mind. I tucked Peachy away in his crate and latched him in tight before heading out to the front porch to see what was going on.
And there she was. Bulb shaped and full of bluster, Grandma stood with Nat at her side, staring down at the smashed garden gnome. He was pink-faced with a green hat and a little red jacket. Mom named him ‘Happy.’ He made her laugh just to look at him in the midst of her treatments and trips to and from the hospital. But now Happy was here all smashed up in the garden, and Mom had been gone for almost a whole awful year.
“That is the tackiest thing! People will question the sort of people who live in a house with a thing like that out front!”
Things went quiet for a moment, I don’t think Nat even knew what to say to that.
But I knew this wasn’t going to be about the garden gnome. She’d come about Peachy who we’d hidden from her for a whole two weeks. But I’d had a funny feeling about that lately, Grandma had eyes and ears everywhere.
A minute later, I heard the squeak of metal behind me. And then, to my shock and surprise, the screen door flew open. Within seconds, Peachy bolted out, lunged at Grandma and nearly knocked her off her feet. How on earth did he get out of there, I thought.
“This! she bellowed. “This is exactly why I’m here!” Her face was wrinkled, powdered and puffed, with a coat of bright red lipstick smeared across her lips. Cruella had nothing on her. A true animal hater, she shrieked again at the sight of him.
I came running down the sidewalk then and scooped Peachy up in my arms. “It’s okay, boy,” I said, rubbing his peach-colored fur and holding him close.
“It is not okay! That dog has accosted the neighbors and now he’s attacked me! Always on the loose, with no training and no hope of it at all. Why was I not told about him?”
This story is suited to readers interested in the emotional contradictions of early adolescence: wanting independence while longing for the safety of an earlier life. Ivy’s attachment to animals, nature, and the objects connected to her mother will speak especially strongly to those who understand how grief can settle into everyday places.
It may also resonate with families, teachers, and young readers navigating bereavement, bullying, shifting friendships, or a difficult transition at home. The combination of a secret dog, a forceful grandmother, and Ivy’s sharp observations gives the heavier material room to breathe without disguising what she has lost.
Gael Lynch is a writer and storyteller who traces her roots back to her dad’s carefully crafted bedtime stories of fairy queens and villains, beggars of old, the rags to riches sagas of the ancients, always set in the rich green tones of the Irish countryside. Her own greatest ideas, though, are not those of far away and long ago, but ones that exist right under her nose. In what seems to be the ordinary, Gael loves nothing more than a chance encounter while waiting on a line at the grocery store. Perfect strangers offer a world of little gems, experiences she might never have had herself.
The Newbury Award winning author, Patricia Reilly Giff, mentored Gael for many of her writing years. Always a person of pure encouragement, it was Pat’s gentle wisdom that kept her writing and believing in herself for many years.
Her debut novel, IVY LEIGH EVER AFTER, is the story of an eleven, almost twelve-year-old girl whose mom has died and whose life is in a swirl of change. With a mix of humor and heart-rending moments, Ivy will learn that by extending a hand to others, she can also help herself.
If Gael is not at her desk writing, she’s off riding waves, tossing balls in the air for her large golden retriever, Wrigley, or listening to live music under a starlit sky alongside her longtime husband, Tom. She lives in coastal North Carolina with its warm nights and soft ocean breezes. But Newtown, with its pastoral beauty and its warm-hearted people, will always be the place she calls home.
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Ivy Leigh Ever After is built around a question that does not have an easy answer: how can Ivy honor the life she shared with her mother while continuing into a future her mother cannot enter with her? The novel approaches that question through friendship, conflict, family disruption, and Ivy’s growing realization that compassion can be both an inheritance and a choice. Her story does not ask her to stop missing the person she loved; it asks what she might carry forward because of that love.
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