Dancing
to an Irish Reel
by Claire
Fullerton
Genre: Literary Fiction * Publisher: Vinspire Publishing
Date of Publication: March 3, 2015 * ISBN: 978-0-9903042-5-8
Number of pages: 220 * Word Count: 63,000
Cover Artist: Elaina Lee for the
Muse Designs
Book Description:
Twenty five year old Hailey Crossan
takes a trip to Ireland during a sabbatical from her job in the LA record
business. While there, she’s offered a job too good to turn down, so she stays.
Although Hailey works in Galway,
she lives in the countryside of Connemara, a rural area famous for its Irish
traditional music. When Hailey meets
local musician, Liam Hennessey, a confusing relationship begins, which Hailey
thinks is the result of differing cultures, for Liam is married to the music,
and so unbalanced at the prospect of love, he won't come closer nor completely
go away.
And so begins the dance of
attraction that Hailey struggles to decipher. Thankfully, a handful of vibrant
local friends come to her aid, and Hailey learns to love a land and its people,
both with more charm than she ever imagined.
Excerpt:
There’s an energy
that hangs between strangers even in a crowd. Call it interest, or attraction,
or the knowledge of things to come. It is awareness, and I was aware to the
exclusion of all activity around me that Liam Hennessey was watching me. He was
sitting at the corner of the bar by himself, and because I could feel his gaze
upon me like an electrical current, I froze. I did not move an inch because I
sensed I didn’t have to, that something would come about with little prompting
from me. I don’t know how I knew this, but I was right, it came about within
the hour. It began as a series of introductions to people near Liam, and drew
itself closer until Liam was introduced to me.
Right before Leigh
left, claiming she had to get up early the next day to drive to Cork, Kieran
pointed out that the Irish traditional musicians playing in the corner were the
father and older brother of the lad sitting at the end of the bar.
“That’s Liam
Hennessey at the bar there,” Kieran gestured to my right. “He’s the best box
player in Connemara – even in the whole of Ireland, many say. His family is
long in Connemara; they’re all players, so. That’s Sean Liam, his da, and his
brother Anthony there on the guitar.” Kieran seemed proud to know the facts. He
next took my arm and led me straight to Liam.
“I’ve the pleasure
of knowing this American here, her name is Hailey,” Kieran announced to Liam.
I had an uneasy
feeling. It’s one thing to suspect you’ll cross paths with someone again, and
quite another to be fully prepared when it actually happens. For some unknown
reason, I kept thinking it was strange to see Liam this far out in the country
from Galway, but then again, what did I know? I didn’t know anything about him.
Liam looked at me
with large dark eyes and smiled brightly. He was different than I had imagined:
he was friendlier, more candid. I assumed because he looked so dark and
mysterious, there would be a personality to match. I assumed he would be
reserved, aloof, perhaps arrogant in an artistic sort of way. I was paying
close attention, and there was none of that about Liam. In seconds, I realized
he was a nice guy. I moved a step to my right as an older man approached the
bar.
“Would ye give us
a hand there,” the man said to Liam, and for the next few minutes, Liam handed
pints over his head to a group of men too far from the bar’s edge to grab the
glasses themselves. Just then, Kieran said something that set off a chain of
events and put the rest of the night in motion.
“Liam, will you
watch Hailey for me, I’m off to join the sessiun.” With that, Kieran produced a
harmonica from his shirt pocket and walked off to join the musicians in the
corner.
I stood at the bar
and waited for the next thing to happen. The world seemed to operate in slow
motion. All the noise in the room subsided, and the only thing I knew was I was
looking directly at Liam Hennessey. I searched his face for imperfections. I
had never before seen such beauty in the face of a man. I hoped my thoughts
didn’t show on my face. He was so good looking, I wondered why other people in
the room weren’t staring at him, then I realized most of Hughes’ patrons knew
him and were probably used to the way he looked. I was reticent, unsure of how
to speak to Liam, unfamiliar with how provincial he may or may not have been.
Words tend to get in the way in moments like this, but they lay in wait just
the same.
“You’re an
American, yah?” he asked in that way the Irish have of answering their own
question. “I’ve been to America,” he said.
“Where in
America?” I encouraged.
“Boston, New York,
Chicago. My cousins live in Chicago. I even went all the way to Niagara Falls.”
“Believe it or
not, I’ve never been to Niagara Falls. What’s it like?”
“Not much, mind you, it’s a nice enough place,
but ten minutes after I saw the falls, I was asking where I could get a nice
cup of tea.”
“I imagine it
would take a lot to be impressed after living here,” I said.
“I’d never want to
live anywhere else. Everything you could ever want is here in Connemara.”
And it is, I
thought. Connemara has a sense of peace I’ve never felt before.
“Are you long in
Ireland?” he asked.
“I live here,” I
said. “I live in Inverin.”
“Ah, so you’re
just up the road. Me too.”
At 27-years-old,
Liam lived with his parents in the house in which he grew up. He was a
world-class Irish traditional musician that traveled often to places like
Germany, Austria and New Zealand. He was in demand as a player in touring bands
because he was a master at playing the button accordion. As such, he was more
than a musician: he was the bearer of a torch that represented the history of
an old culture. He brought the language of Irish music to regions that
otherwise would have never been enlightened.
Being an Irish
traditional musician is a feat not easily arrived at. Rather, it is a feat
painstakingly achieved. Most of the tunes in a traditional player’s repertoire
have been memorized through listening and repeated execution, as opposed to
memorization by reading musical scores. Traditional music has been passed down
through generational lines, and with Liam’s family, there had been no
interruption. His father was a player, and the world in which Liam grew up was
one of constant exposure to traditional music as if it were a language. I came
to realize much later that Liam’s first language was music, his second language
was Irish, and his third was English.
“So, you must be
another American looking for their roots, then,” Liam stated.
If that was a
question, then it’s a fair one, I thought.
“Actually, I’m
working at the Galway Music Center,” I said, then I followed with my poetry
aspirations, hoping to impress upon him I was not just passing through.
About
the Author:
Claire Fullerton is the author of
Paranormal Mystery, A Portal in Time. She is an award winning essayist, a
contributor to numerous magazines (including “Southern Writers Magazine) a
former newspaper columnist and a four time contributor to the “Chicken Soup for
the Soul” book series.
She hails from Memphis, TN. and now
lives in Malibu, CA where she is working on her third novel.
Tour
giveaway:
1 e-book copy Dancing to an Irish
Reel
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