Samhain — or Halloween — is the best known of the ancient Irish fire festivals that mark the changes of the seasons. I delved into the origins of Samhain (pronounced “Sowen”) for a previous post on Halloween: the meme that reinfected Ireland. This year, I have no more noble goal than to share a picture […]
Blood River, my first Nightmare Vacations story, has a new cover to celebrate its second birthday and the imminent arrival of its sibling: Blood Point. With this new cover, Blood River is available in hardcover for the first time and includes a preview of my new story. Although Blood Point is not a sequel, both […]
August 1st marked the festival of Lughnasadh (loo-nasser if your mouth mangles those Irish phonemes). It’s the beginning of harvest season and a key date in Blood Point, my Irish Nightmare Vacations novel. Named after the pagan god Lugh, it’s another of those Irish festivals that sits between a solstice and an equinox. The big […]
June 23 marks Litha, the ancient midsummer’s eve celebration and the night when horror rises in my new novel, Blood Point. The quiet Irish village of Kinnity hides a dark history, from the brutal killing of a young woman in ancient Ireland to the mad 19th-century landlord building a pyramid tomb. When widower Josh and […]
Would you like to test drive the final drafts of Blood Point, my next Nightmare Vacations horror story? If so, register below to become a Beta Reader. Beta Readers are one of the last stops on the road from a story idea to a published novel. They’re a final chance to revise a book and […]
The weather might not agree yet*, but Lá Bealtaine is the beginning of summer in Ireland’s ancient Celtic calendar. It’s also the beginning of the countdown to launching a new horror story, Blood Point. Sign up to my newsletter for exclusive previews. Sandwiched between the spring equinox and summer solstice, Bealtaine, or “bright fire”, is […]
The Book Corner season 5: Book vs film. Episode 7: The Colour Out Of Space by HP Lovecraft. Hold on to your sanity for 1927’s The Colour Out Of Space by HP Lovecraft, and its 2019 adaptation starring Nicolas Cage. The Book Corner The Book Corner is a regular break from critiquing for the writing […]
TripAdvisor’s top Dublin museums might include Guinness, whiskey, and Kilmainham Gaol, but no writer or lover of good stories should visit the city without a stop at the National Leprechaun Museum. Ireland’s storytelling tradition goes back to the dawn of Irish history, and the National Leprechaun Museum is a tribute to the nation’s wild oral […]
The Book Corner season 5: Book vs film. Episode 5: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro Ishiguro’s sixth novel was published in 2005 and its film adaptation, scripted by Alex Garland, was released in 2010. Read on, and I’ll explain why the novel is a great example of bad storytelling that the film fails […]
Happy Halloween, or Oíche Shamhna shona duit. This ancient Celtic pagan festival is a big deal in Ireland, where the Monday before is a bank holiday, houses are decorated and children dress up to trick or treat. Some say Ireland is the home of Halloween, although it’s celebrated as far south as Brittany and there […]