Tag: Ireland

Seascape Saga Adds Second Novel!

Jane Carlile Baker, Author, Editor, Teaching ConsultantLeave a comment

I apologize for my long absence—I’ve been writing a novel.

Jane Carlile Baker

Rogue Wave published in 2019, and readers have clamored to know since they finished reading it what happens next to the O’Sullivan family. Good news! Rogue Irishman will join Rogue Wave November 13, 2023. It will be available for preorder on Amazon shortly.

Now I’ll bet you’re asking, “So what’s it about?” And the answer is:

International negotiator Quinn O’Sullivan planned a grand tour of Ireland for his daughter’s high school graduation gift. He’s excited to show her the beauty of Ireland and the joy of the Irish, and to find the roots of his immigrant grandparents. She’s excited to find an Irish Sport Horse to add to the line of Morgans at Seascape, their family’s ranch.

Days before they leave, Great-Uncle Seamus asks Quinn to lend his expertise to a committee working to reunify Ireland. Then the Mexican cartel lieutenant married to the O’Sullivan’s nanny receives early release from prison and threatens to kill her. Can Quinn’s wife, a sea otter biologist, protect the ranch while Quinn’s in Ireland? When the cartel attacks Seascape, will Quinn turn to God for direction, or will he go on the offense himself, like before he became a believer?

Seamus’s storytelling will take you to the time of the Troubles. He inadvertently reveals long-held family secrets that shadow Quinn’s attempts to help negotiate Ireland’s reuniting. Where should Quinn turn when he realizes men with guns lurk about his sightseeing excursion with his daughter?

So, there you are. I invite you to go over to Amazon and preorder your copy.

Doomed to Repeat It?

Jane Carlile Baker, Author, Editor, Teaching ConsultantLeave a comment

George Santayana said in 1905 that “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

My papa’s family came from Ireland back in the 1700s, and I’ve researched a bit on the 5 Ws, who, what, why, when, where. For instance, I know those two George Carliles who came from County Down, Ireland in the 1700s were distant grandfathers. I can’t tell you why they came, but I can tell you they lived in Scotland before they did in Ireland, so were probably part of the English moving Protestants to Ireland to beef up their land holding and thus voting rights. The resident Irish didn’t think much of them, and it’s possible they took a hike hoping for better reception.

And yes, that led to more research on the relationship of the English and Irish, which is not a pretty story. Then that led to the writing of Rogue Irishman, a novel in both current time and the time of the Troubles in Ireland. Rogue Irishman follows Quinn O’Sullivan on a trip around Ireland that was meant to explore family history and find a fine Irish Sport Horse to purchase, but turned out to be about the possibility of reuniting Northern Ireland and the Republic. I’m immersed in work on it, and hope to have it out this summer. The twenty-fifth anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, a good time to release a book like Rogue Irishman.

Did I mention that another reason I love the history of Ireland is that I discovered Nellie Cashman, an Irish woman who left after the An Gorta Mor, the Great Irish Potato Famine and became a mining woman on the West Coast of America? She was a generous and talented miner and operator of boarding houses, restaurants, etc. But that’s not all, she once saved seventy-five miners from dying of scurvy by pouring lime juice over their blistered gums. I wrote about her in Toughnut Angel, and I think she’d make a great subject for a movie. Clint Eastwood, Mel Gibson, Tom Hanks, are you listening?

I haven’t met face-to-face with any of these people. But I research, recreate them in my imagination, and come to love and learn from them. Therefore, I am not doomed to repeat the mistakes of history, and I receive the added benefit of enjoying its victories. (And you can, too)