I felt no love for this world, no sense of belonging. I felt separate from it, closed in, claustrophobic. Some days, walking through identical grey suburban streets to school, I felt as if I were being buried alive.” In 1962, the French philosopher René Guénon suggested that we live in ‘degenerate times’, at the end of a long age during which important spiritual truths have been forgotten, the ancient centres of wisdom have been destroyed and the guardians of that wisdom have been dispersed. At such times, he said, a safe repository for spiritual truth can be found in folklore. He suggested that knowledge which is in danger of being lost passes into the symbolic code of a folk tale, and then is passed on to the people. They will perhaps only be concerned with the stories’ surface meanings – but they will at least preserve them, and pass them down to their children. Then, in better times, people might once again appear who understand the code, and who will penetrate the symbolic disguise to the wider meaning behind.59” It is a Call to Life – a full, authentic life. It is a Call to rise from the half-sleep of our existence, and take up our part in the great unfolding of the world. To become a Voice of the Wells. We must answer the Call, or forever be lost in the Wasteland. For many women, that Call occurs at midlife. Dante expressed it perfectly, in the opening lines of The Divine Comedy: ‘Midway upon the journey of my life I found myself in a dark wood, where the right way was lost.’ Most women experience major change in these middle years: physical change or professional; social or psychological; changes in our family and our relationships. Our children leave home. We are overtaken by disillusionment and dissatisfaction. We find ourselves unhappy in our jobs, in our marriages. We develop physical illnesses, anxiety or depression. Rage and grief threaten to overwhelm us. We begin to contemplate our own mortality. We question who we are, who we might have been, who we might yet become. We question our spiritual values and our material values. We begin to wonder what we are doing with our lives, what meaning we might find. We open our eyes a little wider, and take in the world beyond ourselves. For the first time, we see the Wasteland for what it is.” My first novel The Long Delirious Burning Blue was described by The Independent on Sunday as ‘Hugely potent. A tribute to the art of storytelling that is itself an affecting and inspiring story’ and by The Scotsman as ‘… powerful (reminiscent of The English Patient), filmic, and achieving the kind of symmetry that novels often aspire to, but rarely reach.’ 'If Women Rose Rooted', a nonfiction book about women, Celtic myth, place and belonging was published in 2016, 'The Enchanted Life' in 2018, and 'Foxfire, Wolfskin and other stories of shapeshifting women' in September 2019..

The book depicts one way of femininity – connected with nature, stories and heritage – and finds multiple examples of women that thrived when following this path. But these multiple examples still adds up to like 10-15 women in total. This makes me think about all the other aspects and ways of being that were completely ignored. Because enchantment, by my definition, has nothing to do with fantasy, or escapism, or magical thinking: it is founded on a vivid sense of belongingness to a rich and many-layered world; a profound and whole-hearted participation in the adventure of life. The enchanted life presented here is one which is intuitive, embraces wonder and fully engages the creative imagination – but it is also deeply embodied, ecological, grounded in place and community. It flourishes on work that has heart and meaning; it respects the instinctive knowledge and playfulness of children. It understands the myths we live by; thrives on poetry, song and dance. It loves the folkloric, the handcrafted, the practice of traditional skills. It respects wild things, recognises the wisdom of the crow, seeks out the medicine of plants. It rummages and roots on the wild edges, but comes home to an enchanted home and garden. It is engaged with the small, the local, the ethical; enchanted living is slow living.” Being from New York City, living in the Bronx, I feared this book would have little to offer me but I was wrong. There is even a section on how to appreciate the earth as a city dweller. The rest of it made me dream of another way of living. I wanted to move to rural Ireland immediately! In general I enjoyed this - it's all about connecting with the Earth and connecting with Celtic heritage. It interlinks personal stories, Celtic myths, and meetings with other like-minded people. It's kinda like Women who Run with the wolves - so if you like that book, you'll like this one too.

I see someone desperately hanging on to the cliff-edge of control with bleeding, shredded fingernails and gritted teeth, wanting all the while to just let go and scream her tired heart out as she fell.” Sometimes, if you have grown up in certain ways, a fear of being seen to fail can outweigh the personal cost of continuing to live in impossible circumstances.” If you want to learn more about Bookshelves specifically, please read the Bookshelves FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions).

I feel I received this great collection of stories just at a right time to get grounded and to find my roots in every day life.I thoroughly enjoyed this read, as a call to reconnect with Mother Earth to be the powerful women we were all born to be. What a disappointment. I almost couldn’t finish this. Congratulations to everyone who enjoyed this book, I wish I was you. There is Celtic mythology in every chapter with very little analysis about how the stories relate to the female psyche. Instead, the author takes readers on her personal journey from leaving a stressful corporate job to finding the perfect cottage in the middle of nowhere where she can settle down and just be. Spoiler alert, she is never happy and has to move from remote cottage to remote cottage to remote cottage. This is just a boring memoir and I feel like I’ve been cheated into reading it.