Title: THE WINDS OF MORNING
Author: Gifford MacShane
Genre: Historical Fiction
Book Blurb:
Can a young woman save her family from starvation? She’s their only hope & desperate enough for anything.
1848: the third year the potato crop failed in Ireland. The Protestant landlords have absconded back to Britain, leaving the Catholic peasants to fend for themselves, while the English feast on the massive amounts of Irish food they’re importing every day.
With two younger brothers to feed, Molly O'Brien takes her father's place on the road gang, breaking rocks for a road that will run from her tiny village to the river and no farther. If the authorities find out, they’ll demand that her job be given to a boy. Yet fifteen hours of back-breaking labor each day will not garner enough wages to even buy a loaf of bread.
She is beyond despair. Beyond prayer. Standing on the banks of the River Shannon, Molly makes a decision that will change her life in ways she can’t begin to imagine.
Will Molly be able to live with her decision? Or has she made the greatest mistake of her life?
Excerpt:
Late Summer, 1848
The afternoon sun played against the waves of the River Shannon, turning them silver, making them glint like thousands of small fish leaping joyfully upstream to spawn. The banks were lushly green, the sky brilliantly blue. High white clouds, soft as cottongrass tufts, tumbled away to the east.
A girl stood on the western bank, her hair glittering in the late summer sun. The breeze lifted it, teased it, made it fly around her head like a bright red halo—unkempt, untamed, yet somehow holy.
Brushing the wisps of hair away, she stared into the river. Her dress hung upon her in rags. She was thin—so thin the sapling behind her threw a greater shadow. She had no stockings, no shoes, no shawl or kerchief to protect her against a day that was growing cool. And she had no hope.
She was beyond despair. Beyond prayer. And so far beyond the tenets of her childhood that she’d decided to offer her body to the first man with the price of a loaf of bread. At that moment, a voice behind her spoke.
“Colleen bawn.”
Molly looked around, saw a man with dark hair and dark eyes, clean-shaven and well dressed. Her relief at his appearance was quickly eclipsed by shame. She could not speak.
“Colleen bawn,” he murmured in a smooth baritone as he extended his hand. “Come and walk a little ways.” She took his hand without conscious decision, and turned away from the river.
She walked slowly, in time with his steps. He seemed lost in thought and she did not know where they were going, or how she should ask for payment.
She stopped at last and he looked over at her. “I must have bread, sir.”
“I am sorry, colleen, I did not hear you.”
“I will give you my body, sir, but please... I must have the bread first.”
“The bread? Are you hungry, lass?” He shook his head forcefully, raised a hand to rub his brow. They are all hungry.
“No. Yes. No, ’tis not for me.” She twisted away, ready to run. If he did not want her, why had he spoken? Or would he take her and then not pay? But she must have food. She turned back to him, shoulders slouching, fingers laced tightly together. “Please, sir. Just a single loaf I need. For my brothers.”
“I see.” Taking a pipe out of his pocket, he tapped tobacco into it. “And how many brothers have you?”
“Two, sir.” She did not see why it mattered, but she would answer all his questions if he would only give her bread.
“And where are they, colleen?”
“At the croft. I mean the cottage. It’s... it’s not much of a cottage, really... but...”
“I see.” The man stared at his pipe before he lit it. “All right, colleen, suppose you come with me. We will get you bread. Then I will go with you to the cottage and afterwards, you will come with me again.”
“Yes, sir.” She straightened up once more. He might think he needed to go with her, but she would have returned to him. “Thank you, sir.”
He held his hand out again and, like a child, she grasped it tightly. He led her to the public house and bade her sit on the bench outside while he went in. Her taut body relaxed only slightly when he came out carrying a fairly large sack.
She could see two loaves of bread in it, but dared not hope they were both for her. It was all she could do to keep from asking, from begging. Nor could she tell him that the smell of his pipe—the heavenly smell of tobacco—was making her stomach ache from hunger. She pointed out the way, then trotted along beside him saying anything that came to mind to keep from begging for that second loaf.
She told him a tale of tragedy—of how her mother and father had died of starvation, slowly and horribly, her father eating nothing at the end, so that his children might live. How she had taken her father’s place in the public works, because she was the eldest child and her brothers too weak from the fever. “I work outside, breaking rocks for the roads because the workhouses… they wouldn’t let me out at night. I must care for my family. I am all they have left, and I will break rocks forever if I have to. Yet fifteen hours a day will not buy even a loaf of bread.”
Her voice broke when she spoke again of her mother. It had been a week since her death, and she had not had the price of a proper coffin. Her mother had been placed in a mass grave with the others who had died that day. The priest had said some words at the gravesite, but her mother’s name had not been mentioned, for there were too many to name, and too many whose names were not even known.
“But I have my brothers still to care for. And that is why...”
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What makes your featured book a must-read?
Based on true events, and set in Victorian Ireland during the Great Potato Famine, this novel is filled with characters you’ll never forget & historical events you'll wish you could.
“A well crafted piece of art painted with brilliant strokes of creative brilliance.” – GoodReads Review
Incipere Awards 2022: Honorable Mention, Historical Fiction; Author Shout: Top Pick 2024.
Giveaway –
Enter to win a $20 Amazon gift card:
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Runs November 25 – December 3, 2024.
Winner will be drawn on December 4, 2024.
Author Biography:
Gifford MacShane is the author of historical fiction that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit.
Her novels feature a family of Irish immigrants who settle in the Arizona Territory in the late 1800s. With an accessible literary style, MacShane draws out her characters' hidden flaws and strengths as they grapple with both physical and emotional conflicts.
Singing almost before she could talk, MacShane has always loved folk music, whether it be Irish, Appalachian, spirituals, or the songs of the cowboys. Her love of the Old West goes back to childhood, when her father introduced her to the works of Zane Grey. Later she became interested in the Irish diaspora, having realized her father's family must have lived through An Gorta Mor, the Great Irish Potato Famine of the mid-1800s.
Writing allows her to combine her three great interests into a series of family stories, each including romance, traditional song lyrics, and a dash of Celtic mysticism. Having grown up in a large & often boisterous Irish-American family, she is intimately acquainted with the workings of such a clan and uses those experiences to good purpose (though no names will be named!)
MacShane has been a member of the Historical Novel Society since 2017. She loves to sing, though her cats don’t always appreciate it. A self-professed grammar nerd who can still be found diagramming sentences for fun, Giff currently lives in Pennsylvania with her husband Richard, the Pied Piper of stray cats.
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