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• 4. Can I simply say that as I wrote it, I felt frozen. And my heart broke for Casey and Pamela, I think what came later would have been easier for them to get through without the shattering of their lives Lawrence's death caused. (NT) -- celtgirl, 08:13:01 10/26/07 Fri

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• #3. Well, Lawrence could be called a Lost Boy, but to me he never really had a childhood and Peter's Lost Boys just never left childhood. Isn't it sadly comforting to know that in the past, when children went missing, people just believed that they were taken by faries, living in fairyland somewhere? Now, with all the media, we have to face the horrible truth. Laurence was fighting an enemy much worse even than Captian Hook. Have any of you ever read Peter Pan? I did right before that movie, Finding Neverland, came out which was also the week my youngest , my quirkly little DS, started kindergarden- that was not wise. Boy did I bawl when Peter sees Wendy again, at the end! (NT) -- susiej (), 08:48:22 10/26/07 Fri
  • So many children's books are really quite sad. The original version of 'Winnie the Pooh' makes me very weepy and 'Alice in Wonderland' (I'm an Alice fanatic) just breaks my heart. I think Lewis Carroll was a total genius and I bow at his feet. I can't tell you how many times I read 'Alice' growing up. (NT) -- celtgirl, 11:43:08 10/26/07 Fri

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• It is emotionally hard to get myself back to where I was when I read the chapter. My heart broke for Lawrence because of what he had done, had felt and gone through as he died. It was an ugly cry for me and then my heart broke all over for Casey and Pamela. I still feel heartache thinking about Lawrence now and find myself wishing that the words in the book would read a different ending for him. I do think Lawrence and his 'gifts' were symbolic of something deeper and think he was introduced into the lives of Casey and Pamela for a reason. I think the meaning of Lawrence is something that will unfold in their hearts in time to come. (NT) -- Tracy (), 10:01:32 10/26/07 Fri
  • Girl, letting go of Lawrence was the hardest thing I've ever done as a writer. I really feel his absence as I work on book three. (NT) -- celtgirl, 12:28:29 10/26/07 Fri
    • The choice for Lawrence to die was your own, Cindy. What, gee I want to say "possessed" you, but maybe what made you feel that his death was needed, or appropriate for the story you were writing? (NT) -- Denise, 13:00:34 10/26/07 Fri
      • Because Lawrence's past was all too real for several boys that got caught up in the Kincora scandal. Because mostly in these situations things don't end happily- I hadn't intended to kill him off actually, I really loved that boy, but also if the story goes a certain way and I ignore it, because I don't like the direction then I am leading the story in a false direction and it would show in the writing. Also this is Northern Ireland, tragedy infests people's lives. I was just being true to how the story presented itself, it wasn't something I wanted to do per se, if that makes sense. :) (NT) -- celtgirl, 13:24:37 10/26/07 Fri
        • I've always liked the Cinderella happy endings but I know that would not be true to the time period and the history of abuse and violence in which poor Lawrence was already embroiled. Not having a writer's bone in my body, I wondered how these revelations materialize. Do the fingers on the keyboard almost have a mind of their own or do you fully and consciously direct the words? Maybe that sounds silly, but sometimes authors say the story just reveals itself (I think you have said this too) and so I wonder. (NT) -- Denise, 15:43:30 10/26/07 Fri
          • No, writing is a very funny process and though some days it feels like I grind every word out, other days it feels like I am merely a conduit through which the words travel. So I never feel that I consciously make choices about the direction of the story. Other than following the history to the best of my ability and research. Some plot lines bubble away in the back of my mind for months and months, others spring out entire and demand to be written down immediately. Like the Nuala storyline, she was just there and I wrote most of Part Five in a few days. Other pieces stew forever and some never make it off the computer screen. Some of those end up being my favourite bits. :) (NT) -- celtgirl, 19:23:00 10/26/07 Fri
            • Thank you for sharing this, Cindy. I find it all utterly fascinating and foreign to me. (NT) -- Denise, 21:57:12 10/26/07 Fri

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• 77-2) The obvious past is probably that of the main characters. Pamela still has a rather large secret that she has kept from Casey, and her feelings of guilt over her past conduct does not escape her daily life. Casey's continued involvement in the IRA, and his family's history of standing up to the governing forces and being beaten down does not escape him. He's been physically and mentally abused by the Brits, partly for the Riordan name alone, as well as the family history of needing to fight social injustice. But the major past that cannot be escaped, is the repressed past of Ireland, which it cannot escape or forget. (NT) -- Denise, 13:14:39 10/26/07 Fri

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• I have to say, that even though I hated to have Lawrence die, it did seem almost enevitable that something bad was going to happen to him. Was there foreshadowing of this event in the story? I am not sure and can't re-read, cause I have lent my book to a friend. I think there must have been. What you said, Cindy about " being true to how the story presented itself, it wasn't something I wanted to do per se, if that makes sense." that does make sense to me. The story seemed to be sending Lawrence down a dark path, and he could not help but follow. He thought he was protecting those he loved. I think his past did catch up to him, but was so glad that there was someone who cared that he had lived and died. (NT) -- Dana, 15:17:20 10/26/07 Fri

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• this was real sad for sure. but the owl did tell us, so I was expecting something. I just automatically figured it wouldn't be Casey or Pamela, or Jamie, so that left Pat, Sylvie, and Lawrence....... I think there are things we become, do, think,, that are all a product of our past. So we can never really escape the past. -- don't really remember Peter Pan that much, at least not out side of hte main story, Peter Pan and Captain Hook. (NT) -- bug, 18:38:01 10/26/07 Fri

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• This was, for me, the most heart and gut wrenching bit of any book I have ever read. I think I fell in love with Lawrence from the very beginning, but like others have said, I almost expected something bad to happen to him (Sylvie was the real shocker - I didn't see that coming at all!); you could see the story had to go that way. When Pamela insists on staying with him and whispers the bit from Peter Pan was one of the most beautiful things I've ever read. (NT) -- Lisser, 21:33:36 10/26/07 Fri
  • Oh gosh, Melissa, thank you- that made my day. :) (NT) -- celtgirl, 00:16:14 10/27/07 Sat
    • Which kind of makes me sound a bit sadistic, doesn't it? (NT) -- celtgirl, 00:17:24 10/27/07 Sat
  • Sylvie's death totally threw me too. I didn't see that coming at all. Poor, poor Pat! And it was touching how it affected Jamie. (NT) -- susiej, 10:44:08 10/27/07 Sat
    • I knew about Sylvie, simply because Pat is the dark horse of the story in a sense. Plus for some reason all the major events of Irish history during that time, I seem to always see through his eyes. History is going to bear down on him hardest of all perhaps, and it will slowly change him over the series. He'll still be essentially Pat Riordan, but it's going to really change him as well. (NT) -- celtgirl, 10:52:32 10/27/07 Sat
      • That's what I'm afraid of. He began so sweet and idealistic, but too much shite has happened to him. I thought if you were going to mess with someone, it would be him. He's rather a metaphor for Ireland, hopeful at first, but resilient and vengeful later. (NT) -- Denise, 11:06:00 10/27/07 Sat
        • well said. I too had seen him (and Sylvie) as the future of Ireland, and I guess I was just hoping for a brighter future, but hoping aint getting. I forget that this book is written in the past mostly I guess because I was/am so ignorant of the Irish story. Thanks to Cindy, I'm learning! (NT) -- susiej, 11:49:19 10/27/07 Sat
      • Okay, now I don't even know what you're going to do to the poor boyo, and already my heart is heavy for him. Losing Sylvie destroyed me even more than Lawrences death in some ways, perhaps because she and Pat were so happy together, there was so much hope in their relationship and Lawrence never quite seemed to leave the despair and longing behind. I still feel the shock, horror and betrayal of both deaths whenever I think about them. (NT) -- Carla, 13:07:44 10/27/07 Sat