My Debut Book Launch
It was a dark and stormy night in October, 2014, when I launched A Cry from the Deep, my debut novel, at the local library in Campbell River on Vancouver Island. It wasn’t a night to be out. The wind howled, as it does across Discovery Passage, the waves crashed on the shore, and the rain lashed my car as I drove to the library. A wicked night, but the room for my launch was full of friends, family, and strangers waiting to hear me read from my book.
Book Launch of A CRY FROM THE DEEP
Since A Cry from the Deep is set mostly in Ireland, I had baked some shortbread cookies and decorated them with green icing and candy sparkles. I have such warm memories of that evening, thanks to my community’s support.
I can’t believe ten years have passed since I published A Cry from the Deep. This book was definitely a passion project, because this genre-bending novel is the kind of story I love to read. It has great characters, time slip, mystery, adventure, romance, and a touch of paranormal. No wonder it took me ten years to write!
The Irish Times published an article, titled “A debut novelist tries to fathom the elements that inspired her work.
A Celebration with a Sale
To celebrate, I’ve cut the price of the ebook in half to $2.99 and lowered the price of the paperback, too, ending on Oct. 21.
The interior has been updated and I’ve gone back to the original cover, which most readers prefer. You can find it on Amazon, Nook, Apple, Kobo, and other book websites.
By the way, the audiobook for A CRY FOR THE DEEP is available on Apple books.
The Film that Inspired the Story
I was inspired to write this story by a movie I saw when I was a child. It was called I’ll Never Forget You and starred Tyrone Power and Anne Blyth. It’s about a scientist, who goes back in time to the eighteenth century after reading a diary. There, he falls in love with a woman. When he returns to the future, he meets a woman who looks exactly like the one he’d fallen in love with hundreds of years before. It’s a story that captured my young imagination. It left me wondering about love everlasting.
The movie was originally distributed as The House in the Square, based on a stage play.
That’s the premise of A Cry from the Deep: Love doesn’t die when we do.
Fate Has a Role
My story begins with a prologue set in the 19th century. It introduces a few characters that have roles to play later on. Then, we move to 2019 and meet, Catherine Fitzgerald, an underwater photographer and divorced mother of one, fussing over her lavender farm in Provence. She gets a call from an old friend, who’s now the editor of National Geographic magazine. He wants her to cover the hunt for one of the lost ships of the Spanish Armada. Laden with gold, it sank off the shores of Ireland. The dive team is to be led by a notorious salvager, who is known to play fast and loose with the laws of the sea. Catherine hesitates to take the assignment because she’s been out of the field too long, due to a diving accident years before. But the editor is persuasive.
While considering whether to go, Catherine buys an antique Claddagh ring at a flea market and begins to have dreams of a woman from another time. Why she’s haunting Catherine becomes as compelling as the hunt she’ll be on.
Love and the Claddagh Ring
And then there’s the men in her life: Richard, her ex, a psychiatrist, who’s the father of her child and still loves her, and Daniel, the attractive but unavailable marine archaeologist on the dive team. With every step, it appears Fate has a role to play.
A Travel Book, too
Because Robert and I had spent a month touring Ireland in 2006, and we had gone to New York several times as well as to Provence, France, I had much to draw on when I wrote the story, which is set in the three places. One of my friends thought A Cry from the Deep should be in Ireland’s tourist shops because of the scenes I had written and the folklore I had woven in.
Irish Memories
Interview with Author
Below is my talk with a local reporter from Shaw Television about the writing of A Cry from the Deep. What wonderful memories: the trip to Ireland, the writing of my novel, and the interview.
A Lovely Review
So many reviews later, but this one by Cindy Spears stands out.
A Sequel Perhaps
Ah, dear friend, Karen Dodd, author of Everybody Knows, a Nicolo Moretti Crime Thriller, has been encouraging me for years to write a sequel. I just might begin, after I launch Along Came a Gardener. Alex, Catherine Fitzgerald’s precocious and feisty daughter, would make a great protagonist in the sequel.
Thoughts
If you’ve read my book or have further questions, I’d love to hear from you.
