Why a Booktrail?
2023: A woman coming to terms with the demons of her past and finding a new path forward
Water
What you need to know before your trail
The first thing Vanessa Carvin does when she arrives on the island is change her name. To the locals, she is Willow Hale, a solitary outsider escaping Dublin to live a hermetic existence in a small cottage, not a notorious woman on the run from her past.
But scandals follow like hunting dogs. And she has some questions of her own to answer. If her ex-husband is really the monster everyone says he is, then how complicit was she in his crimes?
Escaping her old life might seem like a good idea but the choices she has made throughout her marriage have consequences. Here, on the island, Vanessa must reflect on what she did – and did not do. Only then can she discover whether she is worthy of finding peace at all.
Locations
Reset- Ireland - (Republic of)
- A: Dublin - Trinity College
- B: Dublin - O'Connell Bridge
- C: Dalkey Island
- D: Inisheer
Travel Guide
The island and Dublin
The island in the novel is never named but it is very small and very remote. It’s somewhere off the Atlantic coast and so far from Dublin but there is a little island just close to Dublin where it could also be…
Dublin is only mentioned in passing to show where this woman has come from and show snippets of her early life.
It’s fun trying to guess where this woman has fled but that is not really the focus of the story. The focus is about why she has left the big city and come to this very small and remote place where everyone knows each other and now they want to get to know her.
What secrets has she brought to this little island?
BookTrail Boarding Pass:
Destination: Dublin, an Irish island Author/guide: John Boyne Departure Time: 2023
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