Distant Voices

by Maeve Friel

This voice, this Harald, was haunting her dreams, speaking to her in his strange accent, drawing her into another life.. . . She began to feel as if he had burrowed beneath her skin and was using her sleep to spin dreams thronged with strange men horn long ago, their distant voices straining to be heard. Each night Ellie is haunted by a mysterious figure who spins stories of sea voyages, exile and death while she sleeps. His appeal to Ellie, Only you will know where to find me leads her to cross the border from Deny into Donegal where she makes a startling discovery on a lonelv headland. Set in the north-west of Ireland, Maeve Friel's book is a powerful and unusual evocation of the Viking era.

128 pages, Paperback

First published October 13, 1994

About the author

I was born in Derry (Northern Ireland) where I went to Thornhill College and then studied sociology in University College Dublin. I have lived all over the place since then and have worked as a teacher, a translator, a secretary and a tour guide before taking up full time writing.

I wrote several short stories for adults which were broadcast by BBC Radio 4. Then I wrote Irrational Developments, a story inspired by the protests about water shortages in a small Spanish village. It was published in the Sunday Tribune and went on to win the 1990 Hennessy Literary Award. That encouraged me to keep writing.

Since then I have written 19 books for children of all ages as well as lots of short stories which appear in many anthologies. I live in Dublin and also have a hideaway in that same small Spanish village where I am surrounded by orange orchards.

Reviews

[Cosmi_e · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing