Authors usually don't ask their readers how to make their books better. Reviewers provide that kind of advice. But I am making such a request of my Irish readers. This story of a young American is set in a place and culture that I have visited, but never inhabited. The plot is based on certain documented events, but involves situations and details of local society and geography that are speculative or invented outright. One comment in the characters’ defense: They are often expressing their personal opinions, which aren't necessarily accurate or the prevailing view at that time and place. But I hope that natives of western Ireland some forty years ago will come upon this story, enjoy it, and will offer to help me spy on their world more truthfully. One beauty of print-on-demand ebooks is that the novelist can issue a new “edition” with the very next copy.
    For now, I can only contend that the story is less about Irish history and culture than about journeys of self-discovery and the mysterious tides of fate and historical coincidence that have shaped all of us. History has a way of returning unexpectedly. May you revisit a bit of your own here.

V. E. Smith
June, 2015