Novels

These novels have not yet been published, though I am actively seeking publication. Sample chapters are provided. All interest gratefully considered!

The Raptive and the Loner, Volume One of The Jimmy Meridian Story

Fable/fantasy, for teen readers and older

The central concept is that we create another world with our thoughts. James Mooney discovers this, as does thirteen-year-old Lucy Scales. Lucy is the loner, and she badly needs an injection of energy to improve her life. She finds that, with the help of James, aka the raptive, Jimmy Meridian, she can take the reins herself. The implications are larger than she realises. The entire story spans two hundred and fifty years in four volumes, beginning with James Mooney’s ‘rapture’ into the Thought World. Read more...

The Body Coat

Adult Novel
This novel explores the consciousness of a young woman while she attempts to redeem herself from the pain and stigma of her abusive past. Set in Ireland of the 1990s, a time of economic recession and social change, the story juxtaposes old beliefs with ‘New Age’ philosophies, rural traditions with urban development, harsh personal issues with psychic explorations. The notion of the changeling is central, but is brought into a real, modern world. Read more...

The Coalblack Sea

Adult Novel
The Coalblack Sea is a novel of guilt and redemption. After I had written it and tried some publishers, I set it aside for some years. Returning to it in 2008, I realised that the main character displays many signs of emotional dysregulation. Some aspects of the story are autobiographical – not the murder, I must stress! Dublin in the 1970s is a witnessed reality and a large part of the emotional dysregulation too. Guilt is as large as we care to make it. Joan Fey’s guilt has a reason for being large, but does she need to destroy herself because of it? The question applies to us all on different levels, and constitutes the central issue of this book. Read more...

The Thirteenth Cone

Fantasy, for adults and older teenagers
Eleven-year-old Dinn is a prisoner in a world of spirits who are pre-human. That is, they’ve had the choice as to whether they want to be incarnated, but, having seen the central themes of their lives, have decided against. The general populus is kept ignorant of this and other facts by their theocratic leaders. They believe humans (Hinters) to be the big enemy. Petris is a world without time, so all temporal words have been removed from the main portion of the narrative. The alternative grammar is included in a dictionary, but one gets used to it without too much trouble (I hope!). The plot is concerned with Dinn’s escape back to the human world, or the Hinterland, which involves a secret society called The Thirteenth Cone and much struggle against an entrenched Petrian establishment. Read more...