Latest Project

Songs of the Selchie is a literary novel that tells the story of Aoife, her mother, Sorcha, and a mysterious old lady, Nina, each of whom suffers the terrible consequences of love, loss, and human cruelty. 

​

Aoife, her mother, and her father, John, move from Florida to John’s hometown of Richmond, a market town in North Yorkshire. He has brought his family home for a simple life, but Aoife hates it.

 

Four years after they move, on the day after The Falklands War ends, John takes his own life, leaving Sorcha and Aoife to fend for themselves. To escape the gossip of the town, Sorcha moves herself and her daughter to Ravensworth, a small village five miles from Richmond. But Sorcha has underestimated the villagers. They immediately take a dislike to both mother and daughter – the former because of her short skirts and defiant stare - and the latter because she is a fatherless feral child, who clearly needs taking in hand.

            

Aoife spends her time avoiding school and the rough kids in the village, retreating into the stories and myths her father used to tell her. They don’t like her American accent, and they don’t like her.

 

Aoife becomes increasingly unhappy, and after an unpleasant encounter with a local boy, she takes refuge in the garden behind the big house with the green shutters. 

It is here that Aoife meets Nina, an old lady filled with kindness, and tales of Ireland, the sea and a man she once loved. 

 

But tragedy has struck the lives of all three characters once before. Will it strike again?

 

The novel is told from Aoife’s perspective, but there are three storylines (one for each of the female characters). This is, however, essentially a bildungsroman. The novel starts and ends with Aoife. She is drawn into the adult world of grief, learning about loss and love, and the terrible things people do to each other. Soon truth and lies collide, and Aoife must decide who she can trust and who she must avoid. And as she learns more about the old lady, Aoife realises things are not always what they seem – but not soon enough to resist the song of the selchie who beckons from the bottom of the lake.

 

Expect the uncanny, the strange and the gothic. The descriptive prose at once offers hope that past sins can be atoned, whilst acknowledging that illicit passion carries its own heavy consequences. In a magical world of shadows and secrets, who can the reader trust?