2/26/2024 0 Comments "Research" trip to Ireland I recently flew to Ireland with my daughter. We visited cousins with whom we've been in touch over the past forty years but had never actually met in person. We received the royal treatment, and with our native personal tour guides, saw sites not often frequented by tourists. It was fabulous to finally meet these Connolly cousins and realize how thick blood truly is--we felt like old friends and were right at home in their homes. Along with site seeing, family visits and the opportunity to see some of the places I'd written about in Book One of the Gallagher Girls Mysteries, I gathered ideas and impressions -- fodder for Book Two. Highlights were a trip to the Aran Island of Inisheer, pub-hopping in Dublin, and a visit to the Old Connolly Homestead. The only downside to the trip was that we wanted to stay; I mean, if I had the funds and the freedom, I would have bought a cottage on the Dingle Peninsula and tucked in for a summer (at least) of writing, painting, and soaking up all things Irish. But home we came (and it was nice to be back! Travel can be exhausting) and I immediately started in on Book Two, which now has the preliminary title of "the Body in Brú na Boínne. Watch for that launch this summer. Slán go fóill, Gail Shipwreck of the Plessey on Inisheer Island
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11/16/2023 0 Comments Interview with BYU-Idaho RadioREXBURG — A detective needs all the help they can get when solving a mystery. Imagine if they had help from those who were the victims. That is the premise of the latest book, “We Are Shadows: An Irish Ghost Story,” from author Gail Grant Park. Park said the idea for the story came from her own life.
9/28/2023 0 Comments First Review for We Are Shadows!We Are Shadows: An Irish Ghost Story, is still in pre-publication with a launch date on Amazon for October 13, 2023, but I submitted the manuscript to a few Reviewer sites. I got my first one back today and it's a 5-Star!! Here's an excerpt from it:
"We Are Shadows" by Gail Grant Park is an engaging read for fans of mystery, detective, and suspense novels with a paranormal element. We Are Shadows is a thrilling read divided into four interconnected parts. The events unfold in Ireland, and Gail Grant Park has graciously added a pronunciation and translation guide for Irish proper names and terms. Pieces of Irish wisdom, like "A handful of skills is better than a bagful of gold," open some chapters. Gail offers us interesting insights into the dark periods of the history of Ireland, like the Great Famine and the social injustice that followed it. The binding elements of the book's four parts are kindness and compassion. Moira is always ready to help those who reach out for her, be it her next-door neighbor or a ghost from the other side of the veil. Open-hearted Moira, empathetic Deirdre, and Nuala, who is always honest with herself, are very lovable characters. Gail touches on the importance of family connections. Nana Brigid may be dead, but she watches over her granddaughters constantly. She is a great secondary character with a vibrant personality to remember. I liked the touching story of Moira's and Deirdre's trip to the US, where they tried to support an elderly relative in need. We Are Shadows has an appealing writing style and a captivating plotline with many unpredictable twists." I recommend enrolling in Readers' Favorite https://readersfavorite.com/ book review and awards site and become a reviewer yourself. You get the inside scoop on up and coming titles and you can do your part to help indie authors get a leg up. 3/26/2023 0 Comments Irish SlangIn the research process for We Are Shadows: An Irish Ghost Story, I watched a lot of Youtube videos and visited a lot of websites on Irish slang. I picked out my favorites, ones that I could hear my characters saying, and peppered my manuscript with colorful language (not off-color, mind you...)
Then I handed my "baby" over to a beta reader, who quickly informed me that I had way too much slang. So in the next draft, much of my favorites were changed out for more familiar expressions—familiar to an American reader, that is. Now, in the spirit of not wanting those lovely words to go to waste, I'm sharing them here with you, so you can see what you will be missing when We Are Shadows is finally published. Maith thú = Ma-hoo (well done, or good on you) Go raibh maith agat = Guh ruh mah a-gut (thank you) Go raibh mile maith agat (a thousand thanks.) A pheata= ah fat-ahm – (my pet, an endearment) Slán tamall = bye for now Slán Leat = Slawn Lyat (goodbye to someone who’s leaving) Up to 90 = extremely busy (I thought this one was especially fun) Gaff = house Jo maxi = taxi Stall the ball = stop talking for a minute Torch = flashlight Ogeous = tricky situation (I may use this one myself) What do you think? Would you stumble over the narrative if you came across one of these? Or would it help to get into the characters better? Chapter One
“Gail, are you all packed? Come eat some breakfast before we get on the road. I’ve made a pot of oatmeal…” Mom called up the stairs as I was tucking the last few of my “special things” into Grampa’s steamer trunk. I’d inherited it several years ago and had been methodically filling it with my personal papers and treasured childhood mementos I wasn’t quite ready to relinquish, even though I was almost 18 and heading off to college. No one would be using my room in my absence, but I wanted to leave it pristine, with nothing out of place or lying around where it would gather dust over the next four months until I returned for the Christmas break. “Almost. I’m not hungry; I can’t eat this early, but thanks anyway. I’ll just take an apple for in the car. You packed lunch, right?” As if it were physically possible for her to forget anything! Mom and I were taking a week to drive my old Volvo station wagon out to Denver Colorado so I could have it at school, then she’ll fly home to Massachusetts. I grabbed my keys off the desk and was closing the trunk lid when my keys slipped out of my fingers and down into the trunk. I knelt down and started fishing around at the bottom, where they’d slid down the side. Where did they get to? With a sigh, I started taking out a stack of papers to find them easier. When I’d cleared a space, I saw them in the corner, but my eye was distracted by a manila envelope labeled, “Spaulding Memorial Elementary essays.” Memories flooded in of those idyllic days with my bosom friend, Sara, exploring every nook and cranny of our small town; and the essays...writing each September about ‘What I did during my summer vacation,” recounting the experiences of those wonderful family camping trips. On impulse, I grabbed the envelope and slid it into the outside pocket of my overnight bag. I headed downstairs with just one fond backward glance at my room, my refuge for the past six years. ... Mom’s turn to drive...I pull out the manila envelope and let my mind travel back to the summer of 1963... “I can’t think of anything to write…” Sara whined in a whisper behind me. “All I did was stay home all summer and swim. What are you writing about?” Sara, my best friend and partner in our newly established “Grant-Churchville Detective Agency,” was rich. At least, she seemed rich to me. Her father was a doctor, and she lived in the coolest house in town. It was round (well, technically, octagonal…) and made of brick. There were lots of rooms and an extension in the back with a hidden staircase. Whenever we had sleepovers at her house, I felt like we were princesses. I also knew she was rich because she had a huge swimming pool--in ground!--with a diving board in her backyard. I had learned to swim there one summer, Dr. Churchville scaring us with the threat that if we peed in the pool, the water would turn purple all around us and everyone would know. Our detective agency didn’t have any clients yet, but that didn’t stop us from riding our bikes all over Townsend looking for mysteries to solve. I scrawled a note, “camping trip,” and passed it back to her. “Gail and Sara! If I have to warn you one more time about talking there will be no recess today for either of you!” My face flushed with heat as our third-grade teacher, Mrs. Catalini, glared at us. ... I had actually enjoyed those yearly back-to-school assignments of “What I did on my summer vacation,” as I always had a ready answer. Every summer our family went camping. It was great fun for my younger sister, Kelly, and I, and we always looked forward to it. Occasionally we’d go to exotic and faraway places like Upstate New York where we camped at Lake George, visiting Ft. Ticonderoga and Ft. William Henry. But most often we stayed closer to home, returning often to Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. I picked up the first essay and read... Mrs. Catalini 3rd Grade September 1963 What I did on my Summer Vacation By Gail Grant This summer our family went the farthest away we’d ever been, to Bar Harbor, Maine. It is five hours away so we stopped halfway in Bath, Maine the first night. Dad’s weeklong vacation was during the total solar eclipse and Walter Cronkite said Bar Harbor was a good place to see it. Our camping buddies were as usual, the Melanson Family: Uncle Mickey and Aunt Dusty, their daughter, Tammy who was my age and Hal, who was Kelly’s age. That first night, Tammy and I went out exploring the campground (with Kelly and Hal tagging along behind us…) while our parents set up the camp site. The Melansons had a huge Army tent and we had a little Metzendorf camper trailer. Dad had traded his motorcycle for it last Spring, as he didn’t have a lot of time anymore to ride it since he started his own business with his brother Winston, running a gas station in Fitchburg. It was an older camper and needed some fixing up, but that was easy for Dad. He is great at fixing anything and everything. When I was only six, he built my sister and I a motorized go-cart. We had fun putt-putting around the yard and woods behind our house. Then the neighbor boy, who is much older than me and has a store-bought race car, challenged me to a race. Our parents blocked off the road and the race was on! He was pretty upset when I easily won. Anyway, while we were exploring the campground, we met an older man outside the camp store. “Well aren’t you a lively bunch! Are you siblings?” “We can’t talk to strangers!” Kelly hissed at me as I started to answer. “I’m Jonathan,” the man said, and held out his hand, which I shook. “Now we are not strangers! And who are you all?” We introduced ourselves (I had to say, “This is my little sister, Kelly,” as she still wouldn’t speak to him). He asked us where we were from, then reaching out towards Kelly, he pulled a coin out from behind her ear! Then Kelly was all smiles as Jonathan dropped the quarter into her hand. He gave us a salute as he walked off. I guess he was one of the nice kinds of strangers. I had my allowance with me, so I went into the store. It was usually the first place I visited whenever we were camping, as I wanted to be sure I got my souvenir. I have a collection of stuffed animals, which are arranged in two rows of shelves across one wall of my bedroom. Everywhere I go I collect a new stuffed animal. This time, because we were in Maine and Mom kept going on and on about how wonderful the Maine lobster is, I chose a bright red lobster. Back at the campsite, Mom was preparing our dinner. She’d made up a big batch of American Chop Suey, which is not Chinese food. She mixes up macaroni, hamburger, tomatoes, onions and a little bit of red sauce. It’s one of my favorite meals. She cooked it at home, froze it, then let it thaw in the pot on the drive out. She just had to heat it up on the camp stove and it was ready. We sat down at the picnic table to eat. Tammy took a bite of the Chop Suey and made a face. “What’s wrong, dear?” Aunt Dusty said. “This doesn’t taste like the kind you make, Mom.” “Don’t be rude!” Uncle Mickey said. “Your Auntie Anne has put a lot of time and effort into making dinner for us, now eat!” He took a big bite then he made a funny face too. “What? What’s wrong with it?” Mom asked, looking worried. She took a bite then said, “Ugh! The macaroni is all soggy--it’s like mush! It must be because I froze it first. I guess elbows don’t freeze well. She grabbed the pot off the table, walked over to the trash bin and dumped out the whole batch. “Get in the cars, everyone!” Dad took charge. “We’re going to Doug’s Fish Fry down the road. I’ll help Annie clean up this mess when we get back.” This was a real treat as we don’t get to eat out in restaurants very much. ... We got to Bar Harbor early the next afternoon and set up camp. Then we all piled back into the cars and drove to the top of Cadillac Mountain. Along with a bunch of other people, we sat on our camp chairs, bundled up in blankets against the cold wind coming off the sea. Looking up through a hole cut out of a cardboard box I watched as the sun was eaten away by the moon. Everyone around me seemed pretty excited and I figured this was a big deal, but I was more interested in getting back to the campground and playing with my lobster. Uncle Mickey was the chef that night, so we got to have hamburgers and hotdogs for dinner. And that’s what I did on my summer vacation. As I returned the essay to the envelope, I thought about the idyllic childhood I’d had. Looking back, a new realization hit me how my parents both worked hard to provide for us girls; to give us experiences that were meaningful on a shoestring budget. Our vacations weren’t to hotels at ski resorts or foreign countries, but I wouldn’t trade those experiences for anything.
But, exerting all my powers to call upon God to deliver me out of the power of this enemy which had seized upon me, and at the very moment when I was ready to sink into despair and abandon myself to destruction—not to an imaginary ruin, but to the power of some actual being from the unseen world, who had such marvelous power as I had never before felt in any being—just at this moment of great alarm, I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me. It no sooner appeared than I found myself delivered from the enemy which held me bound. https://abn.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/pgp/js-h/1?lang=eng 2. In November 2017, President Russell M. Nelson, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, shared a story from his family history of the time when his grandfather received a visit from his own father, who had recently passed away. In the vision he was able to see and converse with his father, ask questions and receive answers. You can watch a video account by President Nelson here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjBwuL0ogJs&ab_channel=FamilyHistoryCanBeFun&fbclid=IwAR0stLb2_TSZuV741oHqhHlI7bVRGuFMNgGyCbjtieKQFGt85IaQ8On6pSA This account also informs my assertion by Eveleen in chapter eleven that “in a better world than this one, we can be a family as we had planned so long ago.” 3. Moira’s wake up call on the road from Dingle is especially close to my heart, as this very thing happened to my cousin, Debby. Her sister, younger by two years, had passed away as a young teen. When Debby was in her early twenties she was in a situation where she was driving at night and fell asleep at the wheel. She woke to the sound of her sister’s voice, loud and clear, “Debby! Wake Up. You’re going to hit the median!” She was able to turn the wheel in time to avert an accident. 4. Have you ever been thinking of a friend or loved one and suddenly they call you out of the blue? The same thing can happen with our departed loved ones. We may be thinking of them and their favourite song will come on the radio at that very moment. Or at times when we are especially missing them, we may see a rainbow, or be given their favourite flower. There’s a beautiful story that illustrates this point here: https://www.ldsliving.com/Why-I-believe-in-a-God-that-gives-us-flowers/s/93090 These were my thoughts behind Julia’s linnet bird. . 5. Jeremiah’s appearance in Chapter Eight is similar to what happened to two family history researchers in Nova Scotia. I had hired them to search the Canadian records for me when I was abroad in Belgium and unable to access records through a Family History Centre, the only means of reading microfilmed records before the online databases were developed. They reported to me that they were the only two people in a small reading room. As they put a film on the reader that they hoped contained the records of my ancestors, both sisters immediately felt the presence of a group of people--as if the room had suddenly become crowded. Both turned to see who had entered but there was no one to be seen. They testified that they felt these were the spirits of my ancestors, excited at the prospect of being “found” in the records before them. Within a short time they had indeed been able to discover the needed information in the films they were reading. 6. Moira’s lucid dream of Nuala in chapter nine is reminiscent of a dream I had in which I was shown information about one of my children, whom I was particularly worried about at the time. The dream gave me peace and comfort, and from that time forth I never was burdened with worry for that child. 7. Nuala’s experience with Da’s voice in the church is especially close to my heart, as it is very similar to an experience my mother had with my father after his passing. My father was a kind, rough-around-the-edges man, who didn’t often say, “I love you,” to his wife and children, but would do anything for them. After his death, my mom was out mowing the lawn on the riding lawn mower, a job my dad usually had done. She came to the edge of the lawn, as it sloped down to the creek. Suddenly, she found that the weight of the mower was propelling it down the hill and she couldn’t turn or stop it. She panicked, thinking she was going to end up in the creek, when she distinctly heard my Dad’s voice, loud and clear, “Annie! You dumb sh*t, turn off the engine!” Which she did, and the mower immediately stopped. 8. Father Feen’s prompting in chapter ten to bring the baptismal register into the house, is based on an incident I experienced, again while overseas with my husband in Belgium. I had just been given a new calling or job in the church to teach the children. The bishop, laying his hands upon my head to give me a blessing and “setting apart” for that calling, stopped in his typical message of advice and counsel. He paused a moment then began again, “soon you will be receiving information on your family history that will bring you great joy.” I thought, “interesting,” but then forgot about it until two weeks later when I received a letter in the mail. It was from a parish priest in Quebec, whom I had written to earlier asking for information on my great-great-grandfather, his two wives and the nine children he had by each wife. Or so the family story went. He had written back that after a search of the parish registers, he could find nine children by the first wife, but only eight by the second. I chalked it up to inflated oral family history and thought no more about it. Then a short time after the Bishop’s blessing, I got a second letter from this same parish priest. He had “felt prompted” to take another look at the register, and was able to find a ninth child by the second wife. The information on that baptism followed. So many pearls are in this story! First of all, for me was the awe that Heavenly Father knew this information was coming (for he had given the priest that prompting, after all), and wanted to share with me the excitement and joy which that news would bring. Second, the gratitude that my bishop was in tune with the Spirit and heard and spoke those words which were given to him. And third, that the parish priest followed the prompting and went back into the records for a more thorough search for that one entry. 9. Paddy's newly acquired knowledge in the afterlife that all children go to heaven, and do not require baptism, is a tenet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and can be found in the Book of Mormon here: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/moro/8?lang=eng and here: Mosiah 3:18-21 This doctrine of the salvation of little children was the first thing that drew me to investigate the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when I was sixteen years old. . It is a doctrine that rings of truth and gives peace to my soul. I believe strongly in an Afterlife, where we can see and be with our loved ones again. I believe the veil between that spirit world and this one is very thin, and on occasion, non-existent. I DO believe in ghosts; the very friendly kind. I also know that evil is real and there is a place in the spirit world for those who choose that side, apart from those who are trying their best to choose the right each day. I hope this little “ghost story” has given you some food for thought! 1/20/2021 0 Comments Mission to Englandan excerpt of Chapter One“Senior Couple Mission Department, Elder Donovan speaking.” “Hello, Elder Donovan, this is Richard Park in Olympia, Washington. I’m retired military and my wife and I are interested in serving a Military Relations mission in the near future. Can you tell me what locations in Europe may be available in, say, eight months?” “Nothing overseas until Spring 2016 I’m afraid. We’ve just recently had turnovers in all those locations…” “Okay, well thank you; we’ll check back later…” “Unless…” “Yes? Unless what?” “Unless you could be ready to go to England in June.” June this year? That’s three months away! Do we even have time to get ready? We haven’t even submitted our application yet.” “Yes, it’s possible. Just before you called I received a call from the couple assigned to Lakenheath Air Force Base in Norfolk, England. They have to cancel due to medical reasons. As we spoke just now, I felt that I should offer the assignment to you, if you’re interested in leaving earlier than you had planned.” “Can I call you back? I need to talk to my wife.” … I was at work at the library when Richard called me. “Do you want to serve as a Military Relations missionary in England beginning in June?” My breath caught in my throat and I could feel tears pricking the corners of my eyes. I quickly stepped outside to the parking lot, as my staff could overhear anything said in my office. “I haven’t even submitted my resignation yet! But, yes! Absolutely! Are you serious? England?? Let’s do it!” In a whirlwind of paperwork, medical exams and shots, appointments and family gatherings, we got our lives in order and our expedited passports and were on our way to Provo, Utah for two weeks of intensive training on what our assignment would be for the next 23 months. You can read more of our mission experiences by hopping over to my mission blog at: mission2england.wordpress.com
http://mission2england.wordpress.com
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