I got an email recently from a woman called Ariadna. She lives in Argentina but was visiting Kilkenny. She wandered into Dubray Books and asked them for books written by Kilkenny writers. They pulled out Keepsake (thank you Dubrays!) She tracked me down and sent me an email (which she has given me permission to reproduce here). Hopefully no direct spoilers but here goes..
Hello!
My name is Ariadna, and I’m from Argentina. I’ve visited Kilkenny with my husband two months ago and while there I started searching for books from local authors. I love reading and I love Ireland, so I just HAD to take home some local books with me. I came into this bookstore (Dubray Books) and I asked one of the guys there for a book written by someone from Kilkenny, and he showed me “Keepsake”. He told me you were not born in Kilkenny but you’ve been living there for a while, and in fact if I recall correctly you had been there a couple of days earlier, signing books. A pity I missed my chance! But I do have my signed copy
I got to say, I loved this book. I love horses (they’re my favorite animals, along with dogs) and I just fell in love with your story. I cried my eyes out when I read about May and how sad Granny was (oh yeah, I cried, I’m 33 years old by the way!) I’ve just finished it, but I’ll keep it forever in my memory. I will totally look for your other books (I still don’t know what it is about but I love the name “The sleeping Baobab tree” – I love trees too! Hehehe).
I just wanted to tell you how much I loved this story. I’ve just told my husband that he totally needs to read it.
Thank you for writing this!
Aridna
Lovely that someone took the time to write this ... So, for Ariadna, here is a picture of a Baobab Tree.
