Bøker av Mary Ellen Feron

In the course of events, time is not always measured in years but more often in days and moments. Years fly by quickly while moments can seem endless and days interminable. White Dawn Rising, the third book in The Extraordinary Love Series brings to a close a chapter in the lives of Tom and Meg Phalen and their family, but only that: a chapter. The years of their lives since the beginning of A Tent For The Sun and continuing in My Tears My Only Bread, seem to have fled across an entire lifetime and for some of the characters actually did, but the love lives on in the minutes and days. In White Dawn Rising, Tom and Meg's little family faces perhaps the greatest challenges of all. They are forced to take leave of each other; to trust the waves of the ocean and the capriciousness of evil men; to hope against hope that all will end well for them, beyond survival into a new life where they can again live in peace. The love that has sustained and nurtured them through life and death again must stretch itself like a net beneath the tightrope they are forced to walk. At the end of their perilous journey, measured not in years but in moments and days, they can only hope to find themselves alive and whole with their dignity and integrity intact. White Dawn Rising is filled with days marked with lingering moments of tenderness and dark terrifying moments of pursuit and espionage, hilarious reprieve and heart-stopping turns and twists. The Extraordinary Love Series marks a tale of courage to the extreme and endurance beyond measure. The events that started the journey turn full circle to place the Phalens on the brink of mighty and heart-wrenching changes. In the final chapters, White Dawn Rising moves beyond the romance of the early years, past the raw survival of the great hunger and into the final stretch to bring Tom and Meg and their children into a place of justice and redemption one wrong step, one fateful turn, one gloriously hopeful moment at a time.

The love of a story is the lifeblood of a culture. The Irish, so enamored by stories, will live and relive moments and even seconds because to forget just one instance of life is to lose what is most essential. Details, events, even facts are given less importance than the essence of a tale. Bards and poets are more readily believed and more highly esteemed than those whose governance dictates the limits and mores of life. We believe the story because we understand it. We believe the storytellers because we know it is their story as well as ours. We want the story to continue. We need to hold close to our hearts the memory, the substance of the sun so that in the gray mist of the cloud we can still believe the horizon is there. A cloud has settled over Ireland in My Tears My Only Bread. The years of 1845-1850 are etched in the hearts of the Irish like a bare branch against the moon. The family we met in A Tent For The Sun enters into this cloud; unsuspecting, unknowing and filled with hope that somehow they will be spared. Tom and Meg Phalen and their children continue the story based on the life of the author's maternal ancestors, Irish peasant Michael Maloney and the aristocratic Margaret Webb. My Tears My Only Bread is the second book in the series to tell their story, to carry their voice into our time and to bear witness to their truth and the essence of their lives. Like A Tent For The Sun, My Tears My Only Bread is a universal story. Characters, good and evil, sober and hilariously funny, fill the pages. Deep love, courage, faith and fearless daring will carry these characters through adventure, intrigue and heartbreak to the end.

"...A true Irish saga taken from the real-life family history of author, Mary Ellen Feron..." A Tent for the Sun is the first novel in a series based upon the author's family history in 19th Century Ireland. In A Tent for the Sun we first meet Tom Phalen and Meg Wynn, characters based on the author's third great-grandparents, Michael Maloney and Margaret Webb. The year is 1835. The place is Glynmor Castle in the valley of Clydagh Glyn, County Mayo, Ireland. The story is one of star-crossed lovers caught up in the class and religious struggles that set the stage for the near destruction of a way of life. The Wynns and the Phalens co-exist peacefully within their designated classes until Meg and Tom fall in love. The lovers' illicit liaison explodes the false serenity of their lives and Meg's father, Lord Jeffrey Wynn, responds swiftly and violently, plunging the lovers into exile. Their life together is threatened from the beginning by a political system that reaches its long tentacles into the very heart of both castle and cottage. A Tent for the Sun could be any family's story. The characters of Tom and Meg embody their land, their class cultures and their history. Tom, strong and handsome, is a man of quiet depth and fierce loyalty. Lovely Meg is the fine, graceful child of privilege. Filled with passion and adventure, their story takes the reader into the towns and kitchens of Western Ireland where Tom and Meg, each sustained by different faiths, take us on a spiritual journey as they face their uncertain future.