Reader book giveaway
TheAvondhu is giving one reader the chance to take home these four novels, providing a nice selection of reading for those long summer evenings. Simply fill out the entry form this week, see page 4 to be in with a chance - best of luck!
In the spring of 1945 a mother dies, leaving four children to fend for themselves in a Dublin tenement.
Nancy, the oldest, lives in dread of the family being split up. The power to send them all to industrial schools such as Artane and Goldenbridge lies with the ‘Cruelty Men’. Their spy, the Pig Farmer, lives next door and holds a long term grudge against the family.
Thankfully, Nancy has loyal friends in Summerhill and the Diamond, among them Lilly, her brother Charlie Weaver, a Dublin newsboy, and their ma, Maggie. Through work, Nancy becomes friendly with Karla, a Jewish refugee from Prague.
When Nancy accidentally betrays Charlie to the police, Charlie ends up in Artane industrial school. Desperate to keep her guilty secret and still help her friend, Nancy and Lilly come up with a plan to help Charlie escape on the boat to England.
Just as her life begins to unravel, Karla steps in with a possible solution to Nancy’s problems. Will Nancy succeed in keeping the family together? And at what cost?
FEMINISM BACKWARDS (BY ROSITA SWEETMAN)
Feminism Backwards is part memoir, part documentary. A founding member of the Irish Women’s Liberation Movement (IWLM), Rosita Sweetman here gleefully recalls the triumphs – and the tribulations – of trying to drag a reluctant Ireland into the 20th Century, crucially, re-appraising Chains or Change the IWLM’s famous pamphlet, detailing what life was like for women in 1970s Ireland - appalling.
Feminism Backwards is also a howl of despair at how women have been treated worldwide down through the centuries, and how misogyny and sexual repression got such a stranglehold on Ireland. Having a survived a marriage break up Rosita re-found her feminism sadly buried, along with her chutzpah. She passionately believes feminism is not about blaming men, or pushing a few women to the top so they can be ‘she-men’ for the patriarchy. It’s about creating a world fit for everyone.
‘A vibrant, vivid journey filled with blistering energy. Sweetman challenges us, informs us, and most importantly shares her experience, which has always been the foundational aspect of feminist storytelling’ - Una Mullally.
THE TREE RUNNER (BY MARK POWER)
Listening to his heart, a delightful boy called Philip Du Croi discovers a wondrous magic as deep and beautiful as the woods around his home. Realising his best friend has moved away without telling him, Philip’s peaceful life in the sleepy town of Heart is about to change. Walking in the woods one day with sadness in
his heart, he stops to share with an old tree about the loss of his friend and magically receives the ability to run upon the trees. When a wealthy businessman named Mr. Ufflewood buys the inventor’s mansion outside town, Philip discovers how he secretly plans to buy the five woods around Heart and turn them into banknotes for his lumber mill.
Joining forces with a beautiful girl in school named Honor Buzzbee, Philip finds the courage to tell her about his amazing new gift, and they plan a way into the great Ufflewood party at the old inventor’s mansion to reveal the lumber tycoon’s plans and save the woods and the town.
The Tree Runner is Mark Power’s first book. Living in Limerick, he is a writer and lover of all thing’s yoga, with a qualification on the branch of Hatha Yoga.
THE DUNNES OF BRITTAS: AN IRISH FAMILY’S SAGA OF ENDURANCE (BY KEVIN LEE AKERS)
In the grand storytelling tradition of Anthony Trollope, Leon Uris and Colleen McCullough, comes The Dunnes of Brittas, a sweeping historical saga beginning in an aristocratic yet fragile Ireland.
The illustrious and ancient Dunne family ruled over land in the heart of Ireland since time immemorial. General Edward Dunne, the clan chieftain, and his family lived in the manor house known as Brittas. His estate agent and cousin Peter Dunne raised his brood in the servant’s wing.
These two related yet very separate branches struggle to secure their futures during the country’s darkest, most formidable years. As Ireland is crumbling, the West is rising in golden sunshine.
The novel (signed copy by the author) follows the Dunnes to Antebellum New Orleans, South America and finally to San Francisco where they struggle to create their own family dynasties. Sharing in each other’s triumphs and tragedies, they finally discover that their strength doesn’t derive from their separate branches, but their common roots.
Rich with historical detail and memorable characters, the novel is loosely narrated by Aunt Lucy who writes to her niece: “My hope is that just maybe Sarafrances will appreciate how many careful plans, impulsive decisions and MIRACLES of the past it took for her to have the kind of life she now enjoys.”