Showing results by author "Deirdre Sullivan" in All Categories

A retelling of the favourite Irish fairytale, The Children of Lir. Aífe marries Lir, a chieftain with four children by his previous wife. Jealous of his affection for his children, the witch Aífe turns them into swans for 900 years. Retold through the voice of Aífe, Savage Her Reply is unsettling and dark, feminist and fierce, yet nuanced in its exploration of the guilt of a complex character.

A collection of 13 dark, feminist retellings of traditional fairy tales that follow in the tradition of Angela Carter; stories from Cinderella to Rumpelstiltskin, tales of mermaids and monsters, are given a unique witchy makeover....

This essay comes from the NPR series This I Believe, which features brief personal reflections from both famous and unknown Americans. The pieces that make up the series compel listeners to rethink not only what and how they have arrived at their beliefs, but also the extent to which they share them with others.

Powerful, poetic and disturbing, Needlework is a girl’s meditation on her efforts to maintain her bodily and spiritual integrity in the face of abuse, violation and neglect. Winner of the Children’s Books Ireland Honour Award for Fiction and a White Raven Award from the International Youth Library.

In this dark, glittering collection of short stories, Deirdre Sullivan explores the trauma and power that reside in women’s bodies. A teenage girl tries to fit in at a party held in a haunted house, with unexpected and disastrous consequences. A mother and daughter run a thriving online business selling antique dolls, while their customers get more than they bargained for. And after a stillbirth, a young woman discovers that there is something bizarre and wondrous growing inside of her.

Catlin and Madeline are extraordinary sisters, living extraordinary lives - in a place that seems entirely ordinary, but which in fact, seethes with secrets, both sacred and sinister. Ballyfran is a village where, for centuries, people who are not quite human have gathered. Catlin has already fallen foul of one such creature - a dark, vicious predator who almost killed her - and only Madeline giving up a part of her own soul was able to bring Catlin back from the brink of death.

Sixteen-year-old twins Madeline and Catlin move to a new life in Ballyfrann, a strange isolated Irish town, a place where the earth is littered with small corpses and unspoken truths. A place where, for generations, teenage girls have gone missing in the surrounding mountains. As distance grows between the twins - as Catlin falls in love, and Madeline begins to understand her own nascent witchcraft - Madeline discovers that Ballyfrann is a place full of predators.

Former child psychic Daisy hasn't thought about her past for a long time. She was only six, after all. The 'wise creatures' in the walls of the house, whispering secrets to her, are long gone. Her parents, dead in a mysterious accident, are forgotten. Some surfaces are better left unscratched. Daisy has left those things behind. And now, 10 years on, she has a happy, normal life. But she does wonder, sometimes, about the blank spaces in her memories. The fear when she encounters certain textures, scents. It can be hard to feel safe in a world that's full of fears you can't explain.