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    Celestial Land and Sea
    Celestial Land and Sea
    Celestial Land and Sea
    Ebook228 pages3 hours

    Celestial Land and Sea

    By Amy McLean

    3/5

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    About this ebook

    Nine years after moving from Belfast to London, Grace Byrne wonders whether or not she made the right decision. She finds little satisfaction in working for the Anchor news team, and the eternal bitterness of her boss doesn't make it any easier. The only positive thing about being stuck in the office every day is Andy, with whom she has been smitten since first joining the Anchor team. After a less than comfortable conversation with her boss’s assistant, Grace returns to her flat in Hampstead contemplating whether she herself might be the real cause of her dissatisfaction.

    Her modest flat is her sanctuary; yet when Grace returns home exhausted on a particularly blustery evening, she discovers a door in her home that she's certain she has never seen before. Rife with curiosity, she opens the door, takes one tentative step, and falls into an abyss, leaving behind her home in Hampstead and landing inside a pirate ship on Clare Island, Mayo.

    As Grace begins to unravel what has happened to her, she learns that she must now walk in the boots of Gráinne O'Malley, the notorious sixteenth-century female Irish pirate. At first, the reasons for this trans-migration and identity exchange are not clear, but Grace accepts her mission to follow in Gráinne's footsteps.

    Cast into the drama of a revolt against Queen Elizabeth I, Grace finds her courage, her inherent sense of purpose, her distant heritage, her present-day raison d’etre, and of course love. Celestial Land and Sea transports readers to the generational source of our shared heritage, and of our recurring challenges and our transcendent triumphs.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Books
    Release dateFeb 23, 2015
    ISBN9781311042309
    Celestial Land and Sea

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    Reviews for Celestial Land and Sea

    3/5

    12 ratings6 reviews

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    • 3/5
      The main character Grace Byrne , She discovers a door in her flat she hadn't seen before and when she enters she ends up in 16th century Ireand on a pirate ship. Her name in the 16th century is Grainne O"Malley a famous female pirate. In real life there was such a woman pirate who lived from 1530 to 1603. The book chronicles Grainne traveling to the court of Queen Elizabeth to ask for the release of her son Tibbot who was a prisoner. An agreement was made with Elizabeth and all was well.
    • 3/5
      This review is late in being posted (it's an Early Reviewers pick) because I just couldn't get involved with Grace O"Malley. It is a shame because it is an interesting story idea. I didn't know when reading it that it is based on a true story. The premise is that Grace O'Mally travels back and forth in time to Ireland (when Elizabeth I was on the throne with all the attendant troubles). In the "now" time, she is working in a mundane job not using her talents. in the "then" time, she is a pirate (or wealthy shipowner) whose son is captured and held in the Tower of London. The story deals with Grace travelling back & forth in time trying to come up with a way to help Grainne (her 15th centurty self) free her son. As she travels, Grace becomes more confident with herself and her life. As well, there were characters in the 'now' whose main purpose appears to have been the doppleganger for the 'then'. Curiously, though, the "then" story concludes with a happy ending, the "now" story just stutters to a stop. Grace does become more confiden, her job situation changes and she ends up with a boyfriend - or so it seems. It just wasn't a satisfying read, which is sad because the historical incident is an interesting one.
    • 3/5
      Synopsis: Grace works for an online news service taking phone calls and re-routing emails. She is bored and knows that her potential is being wasted. In the office is an interesting young man, Andy, who encourages her to show their boss that she can do more than her job currently requires. One evening, as she climbs the stairs to her bedroom, she notices a door that she's never seen before. Her curiosity aroused, she turns the handle and goes back in time to Ireland under the rule of Queen Elizabeth I. In this timeline, Grace is not a mere office worker, but a Pirate Queen who must save her son, and her part of Ireland, from the iron fist of England.Review: The premise is interesting and the author handles getting Grace back and forth in time quite nicely. The underlying themes of self confidence and reliance are good choices for young adult readers. However, the story line, particularly in Ireland, is rather thin. I would have liked much more character development of Queen Elizabeth and her two sycophants. We don't know why they were motivated to treat the Irish as the book implies they did. There is a battle with a pirate ship that does nothing more than indicate that there were other pirates; it also confuses the relationship between Grace and two other characters ~ are they family or friends, or what? In the current timeline, Grace's roommate seems irrelevant; there is little indication of why they are sharing an apartment or if they have any sort of friendship. The ending of the story seems rushed, leaving the reader feeling as if the story is unfulfilled.
    • 2/5
      The description of this book for the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program intrigued me. I'm a fan of London, time travel, pirates, romance, and adventure, so I was hoping to be a fan of this book. While the broad strokes of the plot had promise, the details of the story left me wishing the book had gone through a few more rounds of editing before being published. There was a lot going on, and yet nothing really happened. The transitions between past and present were handled well, but I never felt that Grace as Grace or Grace as Gráinne (or I) were fully engaged in either. Perhaps a younger reader would have more patience for the story. I can't fathom why Grace, a young woman with her whole career ahead of her, would want to keep a job she hates even after gaining the self-confidence she needs to get out of there. Because of a guy? Was that supposed to be her happy ending?
    • 3/5
      (A copy of this book was provided to me by the publisher, free of charge. It has in no way impacted the content of my review)This book would be better marketed as a young adult novel, than historical fiction. While it certainly does contain historical characters & settings, the protagonists (one Grace Byrne, modern gal, and one “Gráinne O'Malley”, 16th-century pirate extraordinaire) are actually both the same person (modern gal, parading herself as Gráinne after falling through a time traveling door that appeared in her apartment). It's a short book that could perhaps have been a novella, and at best is a beach read.To be fair: not a big fan of time travel, me. I do however, love historical fiction, and it was the purported protagonist Gráinne O'Malley that got me interested. But as it turns out, it's not Gráinne, it's Grace- so I felt a bit cheated. Sure, she's walking in her steps, fighting her fight, but Grace Byrne was the kind of girl who sits in the bar sipping cosmo's and gossiping about celebs with her “besties”- I'm sure there are a lot of people who will relate to her, but I'm just not one of them, and I'm even less able to relate to her “search for meaning” in her 20-some year old life.The course of the book covers Elizabeth I's capture of O'Malley's son, Tibbot ne Long Bourke, and his involvement over a revolt regarding clan succession. Under the reign of Henry VIII, England declared Ireland “The Kingdom of Ireland”, and attempted to govern while still involving the ancient clan system in place, by way of bullying & threatening chieftains. A complicated disagree over succession and rent paid to the crown ensued, and Gráinne's son Tiboot, a central figure, was captured by Elizabeth I's men preceding the Nine Years Revolt, during which the real Gráinne petitioned the queen for a pardon on behalf of her son. By this time, the real Gráinne was well on in her years (by the standards of the era), and well known as an indomitable & formidable woman whose exploits as a pirate & chieftain were already becoming the stuff of legend. The meeting of O'Malley- a woman manning a ship in a time when just the presence of a woman on a boat was considered ill-luck, and Elizabeth I- an equally formidable woman ruling a country, against all odds- is the kind of history that makes box office gold. O'Malley is pirate, for one- a career which Elizabeth was ambivalent about, at best; she refused to bow to the queen (she didn't recognize her as it), & even secreted in a dagger despite being told not to (though it was not with ill-intent). But in the book, even that meeting fell a little left of exciting. Outside the anachronistic writing & speech, and outside the fact that the book was really more novella than novel- the author admits much of what she wrote didn't happen in real life. Obviously with historical fiction, there are gaps to fill in, but with something this short, how necessary was that? But the thing I think I had the hardest time with was just the personality of the protagonist. The things she was interested in, the observations she made; the motives and machinations (the few she seemed to have)- none of it really jived for me. As I said before, I think as a young adult novella, this would do fabulously. The flow & the modern feel that was jarring to me would probably be engaging to someone younger, and be an excellent introduction to historical fiction for that genre. It wasn't a bad book, per say, so much as I think it was just marketed wrong. The author herself is young, and judging by her bio, quirky (“niece of a spiritual messenger, Amy often focuses on the Spiritworld in her writing... Her debut novel Walk On explored the concept of the guardian angel.... can be found indulging in the cinematic careers of Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton, uploading videos on YouTube, and dangling toy mice for Medora the cat.”). I think there's promise here, and for the right audience, this book will do well- unfortunately, I just wasn't it.
    • 4/5
      This was a sweet and easy read about a modern day woman living in London who is suddenly transported to Ireland during the Elizabethan times. The author does a nice job at taking a new spin on the transportation to a different time/body theme. I’d recommend to those looking for something light.

    Book preview

    Celestial Land and Sea - Amy McLean

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