Thx to Braiswick

As a new author, well as an author who had been writing & free lancing children's literature for a decade but was a neophyte to book publishing,
I owe a big, big thank you to Trevor Lockwood of Braiswick at By Design.
Given the current log jam in conventional publishing, at least here in the States, I had begun my collection of laudatory rejection letters that said good writing, but not what we're doing right now. (When in fact publishers are taking on authors who won't see their books in print for another 2 or 3 years.) Braiswick liked what I wrote, how I wrote it, gave me direction & freedom at the same time and helped my first YA novel see the light of day before I was too demoralized by the search for a publisher to actually enjoy holding my first book in my hands. (With two more titles lined up for 2006 & 2007, I feel a tremendous surge of energy that conventional publishers simply wouldn't encourage or support. Thx. again Braiswick!)

Daughter Dedannan and the Cauldron of Undry

This is a story filled with Irish banshees and wild boars and Celtic warriors, where the Dedannan tribe, early settlers on shores of the emerald isle travel through the history of Ireland. Fantasy mixed with sociological detail will appeal to a young adult audience looking for more.

The idea for the book began when my 12-year-old son Ben Ressler of Castleton, Vermont, USA told his mom, writer Eileen Ressler, a story filled with Irish banshees and wild boars and Celtic warriors.

So I researched our family history, starting with 1905 when my grandmother Kitty Reilly left the family homestead in Cavan, Ireland.

I kept probing until a whole world of ancient custom and mythology opened up. Two years later I had completed this novel about the mythical Dedannan tribe who, according to legend, were among the first to settle on shores of the emerald isle.

Entwining fantasy with precise sociological detail about ancient Ireland, the novel was first written for a young adult audience but will draw in any reader with a taste for Irish myth or history.

Hope you like it - you can buy it from Amazon or from me