A perfect gift for the Irish person in your life!

St. Patrick's Day - 2006

Read about the trip of a lifetime to do research for a mystery novel set in the beautiful Ireland countryside!

For pictures of Ireland where the authors and friends conducted research for Quenchless Fire!

Summary

    “A twenty-fifth reunion of the four musketeers? Marvelous! Where? West coast of Ireland? You say Marianne has rented a cottage for a month? Yes, of course I’ll come.” Fresh from her adventure at Bayou Bayonne in southern Louisiana, Dr. Sammie Louise Larkin, Professor of Rhetoric and Renaissance Literature, is eager to see her colleagues and to enjoy a quiet vacation in Ireland. There she joins old friends Marianne Sullivan, also a university professor, Betty Landry, owner of an import/export business, and JoAnne Christopher, piano teacher and owner of a Kentucky horse farm.

   When they plan their visit to the small village of Kilcolgan, County Galway, they are aware that ethnic cleansing, terrorism, and religious persecution are not newly discovered problems for the Irish. Little do the friends suspect, however, that theft, murder, smuggling, and intrigue will draw them into a web of activity which includes discovering a missing manuscript of the 16th century English poet Edmund Spenser and uncovering the connection between it and the centuries-old struggle for control within Ireland.

   In her quest for the lost Faerie Queene manuscript of Edmund Spenser, Louise meets Denis O’Malley, an airport supervisor who spins a jolly legend for every occasion; Sean O’Quinn, a rare books dealer who has an eye for more than books; Fr. Michael Fahey, the parish priest who claims to be “on God’s side;” Maureen and Paddy O’Connell whose pub is the hub of village life; and Eileen Fahey Carraway, the ninety year old matriarch who knows all the history and secrets of the area.

    Amidst the spectacular scenery of the rugged coast of Ireland, Louise and her colleagues maneuver through folklore, superstition, gossip, history, blarney, and intrigue to penetrate the mystique of the Irish countryside.