Contemporary Tales of the
Tuatha Dé Danann
COMING SOON
An Caoránach
The Serpent
Loch Dearg, Tír Chonaill, Éire 1998 AD
Sean M’Coul used to be the son with the most promise. Half way through his masters in European history at Halifax University and ice hockey champion, his life had purpose and promise. But it all fell apart when his fiancé left him, accusing him of seeing another woman. She destroyed everything — his opportunity at a PhD, his reputation and his self worth. Humiliated, he left Canada to work as a deckhand at an abbey on an island at Loch Dearg in Ireland to find his roots, determined not to return until he discovered the inner strength to not care what everyone thought.
On his search for identity and an authentic sense of self, Sean discovered far more than he bargained for. In the ancient depth of purgatory, at the will of God ordained through St Patrick himself, was a tale that never found opportunity to play itself out — not until the blood-line of Fionn Mac Cumhaill returned to the motherland from the exile of the Gaels. Enchanted and seduced by a woman known by no one in the town, Sean fought the Church and the locals to save her from condemnation and public execution. In the face of his own Grandmother’s Catholic faith, he dared to risk everything for her — not wanting to face his deepest suspicions that the woman he loved was indeed the monster they accused of her to be.
Tír na nÓg a Dhúiseacht
Awakening the Otherworld
Contae Lú, Éire, approximately 50 AD
The Mór Ríoghain watched the chilled water rush around her ankles, numbing her ivory feet. Somehow it soothed the injuries of her heart. Sunlight sparkled like crystal in the perfectly clear liquid. Today, even the blood tinge that usually sullied the water had gone from the river.
A raven cawed from a branch above and she glanced up, still caught in the memories of the day before — Ulster’s greatest champion was dead. The reality hit her a-fresh, leaving her with the distinct sense that without him this mortal world would be empty forever more. Sharp pain stabbed in her chest; tears welled up against her will, swiftly quenched by fury. Cú Chulainn was a fool. He did not deserve her grief.
The Great Queen of Danú turned from the memory of the bloody corpse of Cú Chulainn, bound with his own intestine to the rocky face a standing stone on the deserted battlefield, too honourable to fall even in death throes. She hiked her olive skirts above her knees and waded across the smooth rocks through the river and to the bank where bluebells hung among tall stands of grass. For a moment the glint of the sun hit the bubbling water and the veil between worlds rippled. She halted as an image struck her. It wasn’t over, they would meet again —
Newcastle, Australia 2010 AD
It was the last thing Kaylah expected, a life defined by her mother. But there she was, working in a gossip magazine with people driven by the latest fashion and the next iphone model. She tried to hide how much she despised their ignorance but this world had massive problems; problems that were going to kill them all. These people lived in a bubble of commercialism. Yet she wore it for her mother until the day she met Jared Fitzgerald, prominent campaigner for protecting the Indonesian forests. Then her life changed.
Jared was everything she wanted and everything she wanted to be — confident, passionate and living a life of authenticity. But as much as she tried, he wasn’t interested in her. When she discovered she was adopted her world crashed around her, driving her harder to win him over. At twenty one, she was alone in a cruel world with no family and a merciless boss. Her only hope at reconnecting with her birth mother lay hidden in her late father’s wooden chest which she was forbidden to access. It was there that she found her Gaelic family heritage and the secrets it held. She knew it was wrong but she was desperate when she used a spell to capture Jared’s heart. She didn’t even really believe it would work. But it did. Or at least she thought it did, until something evil seized Jared’s mind and she realised she had opened a door to an ancient pantheon to whom her people had been enslaved. Suddenly her problems and desires fell into insignificance — she had to get him back.