Sep 15, 2026
Explora Books presented the Setterington Family series by Donna Gene Stankey and co-author Ramona Hammel at the 32nd Beijing International Book Fair (BIBF), held June 17–21 at the China National Convention Center (CNCC) in Beijing.
Vancouver, British Columbia Sep 14, 2026 (Issuewire.com) - Featured throughout the five-day fair at the Explora Books booth, the four-volume series formed part of the publisher's international exhibition showcase.
This year's BIBF marked the fair's 40th anniversary, bringing together over 1,700 exhibitors from 82 countries and regions, showcasing 220,000 book titles, and hosting over 1,000 cultural exchange activities. The Beijing International Publishing Forum convened under the theme "Together for a Shared Future of Publishing," highlighting literature's role in connecting communities across cultures and generations. For a series shaped by decades of family memory and completed after the primary author's passing, the fair provided an especially meaningful international setting.
Donna Gene Stankey grew up on the same land she spent decades documenting--the third generation of Setteringtons to farm outside Elsie, Michigan. She began gathering oral histories from parents, grandparents, and neighbors as a child and only in adulthood committed them to the page. Encouraged by her professors to write, she earned her degree at Western Michigan University. She never saw the series through to publication. It was Ramona Hammel, her daughter and co-author--herself shaped by farm life in Wayland and later near Hudson--who carried the work across the finish line.
The result is a four-volume saga that begins on a frozen December night in 1893 and follows the Setterington family as questions of inheritance, identity, and belonging unfold across generations.
Rate opens at the moment Ralph Horatio Setterington enters a world that did not want him, born to a mother who had hoped for a daughter and a father who saw him continuing the family legacy.
The Lad Called Rate follows Ralph through the rhythms of farm life--hawks overhead, barn owls, muskrats in the ditches--into a growing sense of who he is.
In The Mischief Maker, Ralph experiences the rupture that follows the family's move to town in 1904 and mourns the whip-poor-wills and open sky he left behind.
Forever a Farmer closes the saga at the point where inheritance stops being a gift and becomes a reckoning.
The Setterington Family series by Donna Gene Stankey and Ramona Hammel is a four-volume work of historical fiction grounded in family chronicle, tracing pioneer life in rural Michigan from 1893 onward. The series includes Rate, The Lad Called Rate, The Mischief Maker, and Forever a Farmer. Together, the novels form a portrait of rural Michigan shaped by memory, inheritance, and the evolving meaning of home.
The Setterington Family series is available through Amazon and other major online bookstores.
About Explora Books
Explora Books is a book marketing firm located in the heart of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The company specializes in self-publishing and marketing, taking pride in its exhaustive research and creative strategies that provide wider avenues for aspiring authors to gain recognition for their works. Explora Books aims to guide authors through the complexities of self-publishing, offering convenient solutions to navigate this process. The firm fosters and redefines creativity and innovation, setting new industry standards. Explora Books is dedicated to empowering authors globally.
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