Welcome to the Scattered Seeds Blog Tour, sponsored by
Bewitching Book Tours!!
For my stop, I'm featuring an
excerpt with mini-review!
excerpt with mini-review!
There's also a tour-wide giveaway!!
Scattered Seeds
Julie Doherty
Kindle Edition, 339 pages
Soul Mate Publishing, LLC
April 27, 2016
Historical Romance
In 18th century Ireland,
drought forces Edward and Henry McConnell to assume false names and
escape to the New World with the one valuable thing they still own–their
ancestor’s gold torc.
Edward must leave love behind. Henry finds it in the foul belly of The Charming Hannah , only to lose it when an elusive trader purchases his sweetheart’s indenture.
With nothing but their broken hearts, a lame ox, and a torc they cannot sell without invoking a centuries-old curse, they head for the backcountry, where all hope rests upon getting their seed in the ground. Under constant threat of Indian attack, they endure crushing toil and hardship. By summer, they have wheat for their reward, and unexpected news of Henry’s lost love. They emerge from the wilderness and follow her trail to Philadelphia, unaware her cruel new master awaits them there, his heart set on obtaining the priceless torc they protect.
Edward must leave love behind. Henry finds it in the foul belly of The Charming Hannah , only to lose it when an elusive trader purchases his sweetheart’s indenture.
With nothing but their broken hearts, a lame ox, and a torc they cannot sell without invoking a centuries-old curse, they head for the backcountry, where all hope rests upon getting their seed in the ground. Under constant threat of Indian attack, they endure crushing toil and hardship. By summer, they have wheat for their reward, and unexpected news of Henry’s lost love. They emerge from the wilderness and follow her trail to Philadelphia, unaware her cruel new master awaits them there, his heart set on obtaining the priceless torc they protect.
Note
This mini-review is of the excerpt below,
NOT of the entire book.
This is an interesting scene between an Irish widower and his son. A secret lies buried on their land, something that will bring nothing but sorrow...it's a pagan thing, the father says, not daring to speak about it in detail. From the synopsis, we find out it's a torc, a neck ornament worn by the ancient Celts.
This brief excerpt sets up the scene and characters perfectly, and the reader gets a feel for the personalities of Henry and his father. We also get a rich feel for the Irish culture, as is evident from the father's) strong brogue. Adding to this is the very realistic portrayal of the hardships suffered by the Irish people at the time.
All in all, this sure looks like a really fascinating historical read, as father and son set off for the New World, where they will find love, and be part of colonial America. Perhaps they will somehow be involved in the American Revolution. I would be
delighted if that were the case! Then this novel would be a perfect Fourth of July read!
CHAPTER 1
County
Donegal, Ireland
1755
Henry stood next to his father surveying their largest field. He longed to say that the seeds might yet sprout, that there was still time to yield a return, but the undeniable truth lay right before them: drought had come to Ireland. Their investment in imported flaxseed was lost.
1755
Henry stood next to his father surveying their largest field. He longed to say that the seeds might yet sprout, that there was still time to yield a return, but the undeniable truth lay right before them: drought had come to Ireland. Their investment in imported flaxseed was lost.
“A hundred days,
Henry.” Father’s face bore the pained expression of a man whose hope was as
withered as his crops. “A hundred days was all we needed, all that stood
between us and prosperity.” He kicked a clod of dirt, and it turned to dust.
“It’s all gone, gone along wi’ the horse that harrowed the ground.”
A lump rose in
Henry’s throat. He ached for his father, and he missed their horse. Paddy was a
fine animal purchased ten years ago after a bumper crop of rye, when Edward
McConnell’s luck was good and Henry’s only chore was to stay out of his
mother’s hair. Elizabeth McConnell moldered in the ground now, and Paddy plowed
another man’s fields.
“We will pray, Father.
God will help us.”
“God?” Father kneaded
his forehead with calloused fingers. “God’s groping in our pockets right along
wi’ your Uncle Sorley. Praying did nae pay our tithes or the hearth tax, did
it?”
Surely he didn’t
mean that. Everyone knew Edward McConnell to be a godly man.
“We’ll get more
seed, Father. It’ll grow next year.” He squared his shoulders and tried to look
confident.
“Will nae do us any
good. Your Uncle Sorley plans to decrease our tillage in favor of pasture.”
“Wi’ no cut in
rent, I’ll wager, and early payment again this year.”
Father spat on the
parched ground. “He stopped by yesterday looking for it. Said he’ll call in
after services on the Sabbath.” He ground his teeth together. “I’d gi’ anything
to see the look on his face when he finds our empty hoose.”
Henry’s chest
tightened. Were they moving again? He
rubbed the back of his neck and looked across the rolling patchwork of fields
to the northeast, where their last home rose above a copse of ash, and where
his mother’s daffodils still swayed in the Ulster wind. Four years ago, the
cattle plague put them out of that house and into the windowless shack they now
shared with Phoebe, their only remaining sow. The hut contained a hearth, a
curse necessitating the payment of tax despite the fact that it never contained
a fire.
With no peat left
and no horse to haul more from the bog, the McConnells relied on a moth-eaten
blanket and Phoebe’s body heat for warmth.
They had room to
fall; many Catholics lived in the open, bleeding cattle and boiling the gore
with sorrel for sustenance. Perhaps his father intended to join them.
“Are we moving
again?” he asked.
Father slipped two
fingers under his brown tie wig and rubbed his temple, something he often did
when puzzled.
Henry followed his
gaze to the ruins of Burt Castle, which sat atop a knoll, just above Uncle
Sorley’s grand plantation house.
“Nine years we’ve
suffered bad luck, Henry. E’er since I buried . . .”
Buried
what? Maw? She died five years ago, not nine.
Father sunk his
head into his hands, muffling his speech. “I . . . I guess it’s time to . . .”
Henry stepped into
the hard, hot field, directly in front of his father. “Father, what in the name
of heaven is it?”
Father tilted back
his head and whispered to the sky, “Forgive me, Elizabeth.” He looked at Henry.
“I buried something. Your maw insisted on it, said it was pagan and she did nae
want it in her hoose. I did as she asked. A woman can talk ye into cutting off
your own hand, Henry, remember that if ye can.”
Henry nodded, not
comprehending, wondering what pagan thing lay buried. He’d never heard it
mentioned before, and he was a skilled eavesdropper. “What was it? What did ye
bury?”
Father inhaled
deeply, removed the worn tricorn from his head, and tucked it under his arm.
“I’ll tell ye the whole tale, but first, we have to dig it up. We canny do that
until after dark.” He turned without warning and headed for home.
Henry followed him,
volleying questions against his back.
Father said nothing
until they reached their hut. There, he stormed past Phoebe, flung open the
door, and nodded toward a worm-ravaged chest sitting next to a heap of rushes
that served as their bed.
“Gather up our
claithes and shoes. Use my good cloak for a sack. Bring the dried nettles.” He
grabbed the peat spade, the only tool left from his once abundant array of
implements, and used it to prop open the door.
“Why bring the
nettles?” Henry hated the bitter leaves. “There are more nettles than rocks in
Ulster.”
When his father
offered no reply, he lobbed another question, desperate for clues as to their
destination. “Will ye not wear your good cloak, if we are traveling far?”
“My auld cloak will
draw less attention.”
So, they were going
to some populous place where good cloaks were bad.
Henry spread the
cloak across the dirt floor, careful to avoid Phoebe’s manure. The cloak was
long out of fashion, but still a quality garment that Edward McConnell could
not afford to replace. He threw their scant belongings into the middle of it,
brought the cloak’s corners together, then tied them together to form a sack.
Excepting Phoebe and the clothes they wore, the sack contained everything worth
saving.
He sat on the
rickety chest to watch his father pace.
When Burt Castle
became a silhouette against an amber horizon, Father donned his hat and cloak
and ducked outside.
Henry followed him
to the stone wall separating their field from Uncle Archibald’s.
Father began to
tumble a section of wall.
With his perplexity
and fear mounting, Henry assisted until there was enough of a breach to push
Phoebe through the wall.
She trotted away,
grunting and wagging her curly tail, while he helped restack the stones to
prevent her from returning.
He could no longer
hold his tongue.
“What are we doing?
Why are we putting Phoebe in Uncle Archibald and Aunt Martha’s field? Are we
going somewhere? Where are we going? Why are we taking nettles?”
In his frustration,
he grabbed his father’s arm.
Father whirled
around and gave Henry’s shoulders a fierce shake. “Get hold of yoursel’, lad,
or I’ll cloot ye upside the noggin. No more questions. Just do as ye’re told.”
Henry stared at his
father, who had never once laid a hand on him, nor threatened to.
“I’m sorry, lad. Go
on in the hoose and get the bundle.”
When Henry returned
with their belongings, his father was holding the peat spade.
“Get a good look
around ye, son. It’s the last time ye’ll clap eyes on your hame.”
Julie Doherty expected to follow in her artist father's footsteps, but words, not oils, became her medium. Her novels have been called "romance with teeth", and "a sublime mix of history and suspense".
Her marriage to a Glasgow-born Irishman means frequent visits to the Celtic countries, where she studies the culture that liberally flavors her stories. When not writing, she enjoys cooking over an open fire at her cabin, gardening, and hiking the ridges and valleys of rural Pennsylvania, where she lives just a short distance from the farm carved out of the wilderness by her 18th-century Scotch-Irish ancestors.
She is a member of Romance Writers of America, Central Pennsylvania Romance Writers, Perry County Council of the Arts, and Clan Donald USA.
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