Ivaleena

By Brenda K. Thompson

From Brenda K. Thompson, 2026 Next Generation Indie Book Awards First Place Grand Prize Winner for Fiction for Alice Anyway.

She followed a sign that promised work.

He promised travel. Fame. A new name.

Ivy Lee thought he might see her art.

But he saw a face the world would pay to look at.

In the Kentucky Appalachians of the 1940s, eighteen-year-old Ivy Lee longs for a life beyond The Glens. She carries a sketchbook, a restless heart, and the quiet hope that someone, somewhere, will see what she can create.

Then the Great Meridian Show rolls into Culpepper.

Beneath the lanterns and painted canvas, a carnival man gives her a new name: Ivaleena, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World.

Soon Ivy is standing in the lights, admired by strangers, loved by crowds, and printed on posters from town to town.

But the farther she travels from home, the harder it becomes to remember the girl she used to be.

Because the world has fallen in love with Ivaleena.

And Ivaleena was never really Ivy.

Tender, atmospheric, and deeply human, Ivaleena is an Appalachian story about identity, longing, art, and the quiet courage it takes to claim your own life.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN13: 9798252391052
• Release Date: January 1
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 358 Pages
• Weight: 0.82 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.5"