Mazgeen Press

“Tirana: a Prelude” introduces Hugh Reynir, a photographer in Key West, Florida, who moonlights as a bluegrass banjo player. He meets and is pursued and wooed by an enigmatic Spanish woman, much to his annoyance. Only at the end do we learn the reason for her interest. The story takes Reynir to Scotland, the Isle of Man, Wales, and finally Ireland, where he is alternately befriended and threatened by a variety of personages from Celtic and Norse mythology. He meets the as yet unconceived Ellan, who is the focus of attempts to influence the Key to the coming Age, and appoints himself as her protector, thereby fulfilling his destiny.

“The Celts call by the names of gods that hidden something that only reverent eyes can see.” - Tacitus, Germania 9

“There is a race of men and a race of gods; both are of the breath of the same mother. Power is the distinction: man is weak, the gods endure. However, in some ways we resemble the immortals, whether in greatness of mind or in physical nature, though we know not what destiny is laid out for us by day or night.” - Pindar Nemean 6 (c. 465 BC)

“This is a story where nothing is as it appears... I love the way that everything is tied together at the end. ... the blending of Welsh, Irish, Scottish and even Norse legends ... definitely keeps you entertained as you follow Hubert-Hugh-Luis’s journey to his destiny.” - from a review by Chere Gruver - Timeless Tales, 2003

More at The Key Bearer Saga blog

ISBN 978-0-915330-09-6
Available from Amazon US and Amazon UK.
If you don't have a Kindle Reader, you can download the book to your computer.
Go to one of the Kindle sites and click on "Available on your PC/Mac" on the right of the screen.

In Earn Fire, Hugh Reynir tells his story to Cindy. Book Two tells how Cindy came to be the mother of Ellan. She is a lawyer who has lost an important case involving Indian fishing rights. She discovers an island near Key West, Florida, called Cayo Ladrón, where the people live without greed or crime or wickedness, and so there is no punishment or restraint, as Tacitus described the "first people" in Annals 3. They call on her to help save the Island from greedy property developers, who are being advised by her unethical lawyer fiancé, Gordon. Cindy is forced to choose between a comfortable domestic life and her ideals. Fifteen-year-old Jamie, who sees people clearly, inspires her decision, as does Outdoor John, who is willing to take direct action with dynamite in order to keep the Island out of the developers' grasp. Will she break off the engagement to Gordon and marry John, or follow a call to meet a mysterious man?

When part-Cherokee seer Jamie teams up with Ojibwe shapeshifter Akakojiishi, Ellan acquires two more powerful defender-guides.

Some of these 48 experiences happened to me, others I witnessed as a fascinated bystander, and a few are anecdotes told to me by friends and acquaintances. They remain with me as life-enhancing lessons and valuable insights into the many facets of human and animal personality and character: kindness, generosity, prejudice, determination, courage, pain, sorrow, delight, love and the ability to reach beyond earthly limitations that brings us to our full human (and dolphin) potential.

I have shared these stories with listeners to RTÉ Radio One and readers of The Sacred Heart Messenger in Ireland, and I have collected them in this book so that others might find in them the same inspiration that they continue to bring to me.

With the addition of one poem, "Tomorrow", this collection is now in ebook format under the title of Over the Wall to the Trinity Ball and other poems (see above). I am selling the remaining few print copies at one euro each, plus postage.