Gemma's Novels
The Banshee, a feared creature of myth and legend, a harbinger of Death, whose cry has echoed through time haunting countless generations with her dreadful wail, as she searches for an end to her suffering.
Born with the power of Angels and pursued by the very Devil himself, eighteen-year-old Annie, is forced to watch the destruction of all she loves before being tortured and burned at the stake for refusing to hand over her powers. With her last breath, she curses the man who has helped to bring about her death and promises hers will be the last voice he and his descendants will ever hear.
Now, in the 21st century, the last in his line is about to become her prey. Like those who have gone before he is a cruel, heartless man, who believes him indestructible, but he had one major weakness, he is without male heir. Only when he is dead, can Annie finally find peace and there is nothing on earth can stop her.
When eight-year-old Bobby, wins the amazing prize of a month at an exclusive summer school in a manor house in the country, he has no idea that all his secret dreams are about to come true. The prize includes a friend and he chooses to take his little sister along with him.
The manor belongs to the Greyleigh Family whose ancestor, Sir Walter, was a famous Knight. His descendants set up a trust whereby twenty underprivileged children are awarded a month of luxury living based on their reason for wanting to be there, and Bobby has many reasons The house is exactly as he imagined it to be, and the suit of armour that once belonged to Sir Walter and now standing proud in the great hall, fascinates him, but there other things within the manor that are not so nice. Even though the present Lord Richard is kind to him, the butler Mr Roberts and housekeeper Mrs Wilson willing allies, it’s the other children who make life difficult for him. The rich boys and girls, whose parents paid a fortune to send their children to this exclusive school, resent anyone unlike them and not wearing the latest in fashion and trainers. So Bobby goes from one set of bullies to another.
Though set in the era of the great Famine, the Paupers' Graveyard is much more than a novel of disaster and loss.it is a story of friendship, love and triumph over the greatest enemy of them all, Death. There are no facts and figures as the story is told through the eyes of a twelve-year-old boy. Like all children he is aware only of the here and now and his story is told with openness and honestly. It tells of friendship between a lady of the manor, Elizabeth and twelve-year-old stable boy, Timmy.
Elizabeth reduced in circumstances, her only crime her inability to produce a male heir. Has just enough money to send her daughters to America aboard one of the dreaded coffin ships. This selfless act will one day prove to be Ireland's salvation. Timmy, orphaned by the famine, finds comfort in his friendship with Elizabeth and together they rescue the sick and homeless children they find on the roads.
Pursued by their enemy, Black Jack Carey, they move in endless flight from place to place, trying to evade him. Their journey takes us from the quiet of the rolling countryside to the squalor of the workhouse and finally to the paupers' graveyard where they lie in restless sleep.
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Copyright © Gemma Mawdsley 2010
