Finnegan's Field by Angela Slatter

In Irish lore, when children go under the hill, they don't come out again.
Ever.
When children go under the hill, they stay where they're put.
Forever.
When children go under the hill, parents, though they pray and search, don't truly think to see them anymore.
Never.




Angela Slatter is the author of one of my favourite books of all time (ALL TIME) Of Sorrow and Such which just blew me away the first time I've read it and its a book I re-read all the time. Since them I've been making it my mission to read everything she's written starting off with Finnegan's Field, a novelette which I think I purchased for just 88p on kindle! Ooh I do love a bargain!


A young child goes missing in Finnegan's Field, a small town in southern Australia of mostly Irish ancestry, a town where over the years many a small child has gone missing, nome come back.
Never.
Until Madrigal Barker returns after been missing for three years.

Everyone is over the moon, everyone except the child's mother, Anne Barker who thinks her child is different she thinks she can a shadow shape looming over her beloved daughter.

There is no explanation for Maddie's disappearance and re-appearance, questions are never asked but Anne just can't let the matter go, she knows her daughter is not the same and is determined to find out just where she has been.

This is a really dark tale, one that really struck a nerve with me, as it would for anyone who has kids. Losing a child and not knowing what happened to them has got to be a parent's worst nightmare. So you instantly connect with Anne, the mother. The tale keeps spinning in a dark web and at times it makes for uncomfortable reading, truly terrifying.

I loved the connection in Finnegan's field to Irish folk tales and mythology, a country I have a deep fascination with. In Finnegan's Field Angela Slatter shows us how these powerful enduring myths can become so deeply embedded in the Irish race that they actually become the myths and legends their ancestors gave them, that their own monsters will follow them forever, even to the other side of the world.

About the Author


Angela Slatter is the author of the urban fantasy novels Vigil (2016) and Corpselight (2017), as well as eight short story collections, including The Girl with No Hands and Other Tales, Sourdough and Other Stories, The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings, and A Feast of Sorrows: Stories. She has won a World Fantasy Award, a British Fantasy Award, a Ditmar, and six Aurealis Awards.

Angela’s short stories have appeared in Australian, UK and US Best Of anthologies such The Mammoth Book of New Horror, The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror, The Best Horror of the Year, The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror, and The Year’s Best YA Speculative Fiction. Her work has been translated into Bulgarian, Russian, Spanish, Japanese, Polish, and Romanian. Victoria Madden of Sweet Potato Films (The Kettering Incident) has optioned the film rights to one of her short stories.

She has an MA and a PhD in Creative Writing, is a graduate of Clarion South 2009 and the Tin House Summer Writers Workshop 2006, and in 2013 she was awarded one of the inaugural Queensland Writers Fellowships. In 2016 Angela was the Established Writer-in-Residence at the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre in Perth.

Her novellas, Of Sorrow and Such (from Tor.com), and Ripper (in the Stephen Jones anthology Horrorology, from Jo Fletcher Books) were released in October 2015.

The third novel in the Verity Fassbinder series, Restoration, will be released in 2018 by Jo Fletcher Books (Hachette International). She is represented by Ian Drury of the literary agency Sheil Land for her long fiction, by Lucy Fawcett of Sheil Land for film rights, and by Alex Adsett of Alex Adsett Publishing Services for illustrated storybooks.


http://angelaslatter.com/

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