Kirjahaku

The final part of the explosive Celtic Colours Trilogy When the big men get around the table on Good Friday of 1998 and sign up to peace in Northern Ireland nine year old Cian Duffy’s story should have ended. Instead it is the beginning of a decade of Troubles for him. Haunted by his mother’s IRA past and chased by present day violence sectarianism, Cian ends up being forced to flee peace-torn Belfast. Facing a life in exile, he reconciles himself to the past and makes a new life for himself, somewhere he feels he belongs. Then Britain votes for Brexit; the old adage of England’s difficulty being Ireland’s opportunity is tabled yet again and Cian has to confront the past and the future. White Leaves of Peace is a stark reminder that ending a war takes more than the signing of a treaty. Peace is hard won. You have to fight for it.

70s rock bands — Led Zep, Sabbath, Free, Skynyrd, Taste… 70s rock guitarists — Page, Blackmore, Trower, Santana, Gallagher… Mickey Hunter? Forgotten by Classic Rock fans, Crown & Kingdom are the lost gods of 70s music. Led by the mercurial Mickey Hunter, they powered across the rock scene, with phenomenal, platinum-selling albums and scorching live gigs. But with great heights come great falls and as the fame grew toxic—especially for Hunter—C&K’s ultimate destruction was inevitable. Fifteen years after his song played out, Rock God Complex tells Mickey Hunter’s story in his words, revealing the turbulent truth of a man who became a god among guitarists. Tracey Iceton is a novelist and rock historian. Her unique relationship with the elusive Hunter granted her privileged access to the guitarist’s story. Rock God Complex is an extraordinary book.

When 12 year-old William Devoy's Irish father sends him from New York to a new Dublin boarding school, St Enda's, William imagines having an adventure. It is 1911; the next five years will bring William, and Ireland, turmoil and opportunity. While William is learning Irish, playing hurling and losing himself in the legend of Cúchulainn, the issue of Irish Home Rule grows increasingly contentious. Sick of British oppression and empowered by the reawakening of Irish national consciousness, one group decide to fight for independence. Among them is Patrick Pearse. Committed to championing the cause of all things Gaelic, Pearse is a poet and a dreamer, an idealist and an activist. And William's headmaster. Alongside comrades and school friends, and as soldiers of the Army of the Irish Republic, William and Pearse will march on the Dublin General Post Office and into history. Green Dawn at St Enda's commemorates the boys of St Enda's, their teachers and comrades at the centenary of the Easter Rising and tells the story one boy's journey into adulthood as a nation struggles for freedom. Tracey Iceton set out to write "a novel based on real events so potent they overwhelmed me." Meticulously researched, the boys at the school are nonetheless fictionalized, using the power of the novel to take readers on an impossible journey, losing themselves in another world, befriending people they would never otherwise meet. In this ambitious novel, the first of a trilogy, and marking the Easter Rising, the voices of those silenced by firing squad or hanging ring out clearly, none more so than that of Patrick Pearse, teacher and author. The first part of the Celtic Colours Trilogy, Green Dawn at St Enda's is followed by Herself Alone in Orange Rain and White Leaves of Peace.

Herself Alone in Orange Rain is a search for identity and freedom set against the IRA mainland bombing campaign of the 1970s, as it tells the story of one young woman?s fight for freedom and independence, for both her homeland and herself.

Hatched in the UK in August 2017, Sparky is a captive-bred barn owl. Raised by humans, living with them, she accepts them as essential to her life, benefiting from the security they can provide, but suffering under the uncertainty they can inflict. And here, thanks to her current human, t-raay-cee, Sparky recounts her unique story. By turns heart warming and disturbing, Sparky offers an owl’s-eye view of her relationship with her human mates and her search for a special human to bond with lifelong. A mesmerising and ambitious work that crosses genres and raises important questions about how we can connect deeply with the more-than-human world.