I, Leona O’Neill, weary
mother-of-four from Derry, am now officially a card-carrying ‘indie author’.
I have released my own book
called Emerald Witch, an epic
Irish urban fairytale based in Derry, Donegal and Dublin. It’s a bit of a
departure from writing about nappies and toddler tantrums on here but that’s
how I like to roll.
It took me two years to
write. I wrote at night while a baby slept on my shoulder. I wrote during the
day while a toddler re-enacted dramatic Thomas the Tank Engine crash
catastrophes at my feet. I wrote in between breaking up squabbles between my
two older boys and I wrote in the windows of opportunity between homeworks and
making dinner. I wrote into the small hours and early in the morning before the
kids woke up.
Here’s a taster of what it’s
about.
If Amelia Morgan’s life were a colour it would be positively beige.
Her love life is as real as the cheap plastic heart her boyfriend gave her for
Valentine’s Day, nothing of note has ever happened in the sleepy seaside town
where she lives with her eccentric grandmother and she is a level-seven
hypochondriac.
Things pick up though, before her 18th birthday, when her
boyfriend drops off the face of the earth, the rate of human combustion in the
town goes stellar and a maniacal stranger purporting to be her long-lost father
starts hanging around town melting people.
It turns out Amelia Morgan is a witch, hidden in wild and windy
Donegal by her mother’s people when she was just a baby. She is daughter to a mad
man and granddaughter to the ancient Celtic Goddess of war, death and
destruction – the Morrigan.
As she comes of age the magical ties that bind the powers within her
unravel, along with deep, dark family secrets. As her world implodes a war
erupts within her between good and very, very bad. She leaves the
beige-coloured existence behind to fight a battle of epic proportions -
encountering headless horsemen, dark angels, power-crazed goddesses and her
deadbeat Dad who requires her blood to raise his corpse mother from the grave.
She discovers magical worlds - under the streets of Dublin, under the
Emerald Lake, beneath the Emerald Forest and races of ancient Irish people who
she must lead out of the darkness the Morrigan spreads across the land.
No one said being a teenager was easy.
Writing has always been my
release. I can’t tell you how many times I have put the world to rights in my
own head through this column.
I started writing my book as
my father began to lose his brave battle with cancer in 2009. I was so overcome
and overwhelmed by grief as the cancer slowly took him away from us that I
needed to escape to somewhere. Not physically escape, I needed somewhere that
my mind could go that didn’t revolve around cancer, hospital visits, devastation
and despair. So when I came home in the evenings from visiting him in the
Hospice I began to write.
And as my father lay in bed
in the Hospice I told him of the characters that had jumped into my head and
the twists and turns of my story. He told me the stories he was told as a
child, ancient Irish myths full of wonder and magic. And for a time we forgot –
about the beeping machines, the medication, the nurses and the place we had
found ourselves in on our journey in life.
And he said I should write
it.
And I did.
And I dedicated it to him. My
guiding light.
Emerald Witch is now available to order in hardback from http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/emerald-witch/18930532
It is also available in ebook format...
For Kindle UK http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007C3QKU2
Kindle US http://www.amazon.com/Emerald-Witch-ebook/dp/B007C3QKU2/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1330121511&sr=8-3
And for iPad, Nook, PC, Mac etc http://www.lulu.com/product/ebook/emerald-witch/18908803
Yay, so nice to finally see an indie Irish writer. Im in Tipp and so happy I found your blog :) Love the sound of your book and will check it out later.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much! I hope you like the book x
Deleteyour blog and country is so beautiful. i was just talking earlier with a friend about coming to ireland. i would love to meet you one day when u come and discuss the mystiks of the earth!!! <3 hope u like my blog as well. do you read alaister crawley at all? do you ship your books to the states?
ReplyDeleteHey there, thank you for your kind words. Ireland is indeed a beautiful, inspiring place to live and visit, particularly Donegal. Full of magical stories and myths, castles and stunning scenery. You should visit. You'd find many wild and wonderful flowers here for your elixirs. I love your blog, beautiful work!
DeleteI will look up Alaister Crawley, thanks for the recommendation.
And yes, my books do ship to America.
Paperback from here...
http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/emerald-witch/18930532
Kindle ebook from here...
http://www.amazon.com/Emerald-Witch-ebook/dp/B007C3QKU2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330898533&sr=8-1
All the very best to you!
Leona