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2000s: On the island of the mermaids….myth is more powerful than truth
The Mermaids Singing
What you need to know before your trail
There is an island off the west coast of Ireland called Inis Muruch–the Island of the Mermaids–a world where myth is more powerful than truth, and love can overcome even death. It is here that Lisa Carey sets her lyrical and sensual first novel, weaving together the voices and lives of three generations of Irish and Irish-American women.
Years ago, the fierce and beautiful Grace stole away from the island with her small daughter, Grainne, unable to bear its isolation. Now Grainne, is motherless at fifteen, and a grandmother she has never met has come to take her back. Her heart is pulled between a life in which she no longer belongs and a family she cannot remember. But only on Inis Muruch can she begin to understand the forces that have torn her family apart.
Travel Guide
Ireland
The island of Inis Muruch–the Island of the Mermaids is sadly fictional but is somewhere off the West coast of Ireland. The novel is said to have been inspired by Inishbofin. This is very close to the island of Inishark where her first novel was set. Inishbofin, however has a larger population and its community survived unlike Inishark.
“On the night she escapes, the sea becomes hers again; the rhythm of the waves aligns itself with the thrust and ebb of her heart. She looks over the silver waters d imagines another beach across the Atlantic, an Irish Shore, the landscape a mirror reflection of this one. There, the wind in the coves, was a chorus of the island mermaids, who moaned with the hopes of capturing a sympathetic man”
The book is not about mermaids but more about Irish folklore and the fate of three women in the same family.
Booktrail Boarding Pass: The Mermaids Singing
Destination: Ireland Author/Guide: Lisa Carey Departure Time: 2000s
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