Tag Archives: A Crack in Everything

Magical Places of Dubh Linn: Dublin Castle

DublinCastel

Dublin Castle sits in the heart of old Dublin, on the highest point of land in the area, a ridge between the Liffey and the Poddle (which now flows underground). A sheltered harbour on the Poddle, Dubh Linn was the original Black Pool from which Dublin gets its name. It was probably the site of an ancient ringfort which guarded the harbour, and from the 930s a Viking settlement stood there. The Norman castle was founded in 1204 and the gates were once decorated with the decapitated heads of rebels and invaders. This gate is on Palace Street, the shortest in Dublin with only two addresses, one of which is the Sick and Indigent Roomkeepers Society, founded in 1790. Next door to it is the lovely Chez Max.

Magical Places of Dubh Linn: The Hellfire Club

Hellfire

Montpelier Hill looms large in the supernatural tales of Dublin and even larger in Dubh Linn. Standing on top of it is the Hellfire Club, once a hunting lodge built in 1725. Stones from the cairn beside it were used in the construction and that sort of thing never ends well. It was used by members of the Irish Hellfire Club for meetings and the stories of wild behaviour, gambling, drunkenness and deals with the devil soon followed. They abandoned it after a fire which was reputedly started by one of the members when a footman spilled his brandy. His solution? Setting the man on fire.

Strange occurances, ghostly reports and bad luck continue to be associated with the Hellfire Club.

 

Magical Places of Dubh Linn: Sídheway gate on Bray Head

Sidheway

Doorways to Dubh Linn are everywhere. Sometimes they can be seen and sometimes not, but there’s always some sort of marker, something to identify them. While doing research for A Hollow in the Hills on Bray Head we came across this tree (or maybe these trees?) right in the middle of the path (I use the term loosely, it’s quite a scramble). I had to put it in.

Magical places of Dubh Linn: Shielmartin Hill

Sheilmartin Hill, Howth in A Hollow in the Hills by Ruth Frances Long
Shielmartin Hill, Howth in A Hollow in the Hills by Ruth Frances Long

Shielmartin hill is part of Howth Head, overlooking Dublin and features in A Hollow in the Hills. Local tradition says that the cairn on the summit was the burial place of Crimthann. Most of the summit appears to be made up of the cairn, with other cairns built on top of it.

One of my many magical places around Dublin featuring in A Crack in Everything and A Hollow in the Hills.

I’m going to post some more of them over the next while.  Stay tuned.

In the meantime check out the Goodreads giveaway running for another 8 days.

#IntheWild

I think we can all blame thank the fabulous Celine Kiernan for #InTheWild. I asked for pitures of A CavanCKHollow in the Hills if anyone saw it in the wild. So she put it in a bush and sent me a photo.

As you do in Cavan….

(thank you Celine! You are fab!)

Poor Jinx, however does not appreciate nature in any form. He’s a city fae.

And then others got in on the act. 😀

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John in Dundrum

 

 

Eventually, even I gave in.

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With the library cows

 

 

Luckily the booksellers of Dublin and Drogheda came to our Jinx’s rescue

Here it is on the shelves. Not quite in its natural habitat though. That would be the hands of readers.

If you see A Hollow in the Hills out in the wild, send me a photo – @rflong #IntheWild #Galavanting (because that’s clearly what it’s doing) #HollowInTheHills.

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Dubray Grafton Street
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Dubray Grafton Street
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Dubray Grafton Street
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Dubray Stillorgan
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Hodges Figgis
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Dubray Dun Laoghaire
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Waterstones Drogheda
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Waterstones Drogheda
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Waterstones Drogheda

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In other news, check out Dublin2019 Irish Fiction Friday today – featuring me!

Literary Listings…

A nice little mention of the upcoming book launch for A Hollow in the Hills appeared in the Irish Times while I was away (12th August).

“In crime fiction, Louise Phillips’s new novel The Game Changer launches on Tuesday, September 8th, while the launch for A Hollow in the Hills by Ruth Frances Long takes place the following evening, September 9th. Lastly, the short story writer ER Murray launches her anticipated debut children’s novel The Book of Learning on Tuesday, September 15th. All events take place in the shop’s Temple Bar outlet in Dublin 2 from 6.30 – 8pm.”

I’m hoping to get to both Louise’s and ER Murray’s launches too. Both lovely ladies and terrific writers.

Read the full article here.

Giveaway for #IrishFictionFortnight & More Booklaunch news

IFFI’m very excited to be part of Irish Fiction Fortnight on the BleachHouseLibrary website. This year I wrote about a book that had a huge influence on what I write today. It’s called The Hounds of the Morrigan by Pat O’Shea and you can read all about it here. 

There’s also a giveaway for a signed copy of A Crack in Everything.

Another exciting bit of news is that Kate Johnson has very kindly agreed to launch A Hollow in the Hills in the Gutter Bookshop, Dublin on the 9th September at 6.30pm. Come one, come all. Kate is a fantastic writer and I’m particularly addicted to her books The Untied Kingdom and Impossible Things. Or maybe its her heroes… 😉 Especially the next one, from the Ghost Book which doesn’t have a name yet but is AWESOME! And is partly set in Dublin.

So another reason, as if you needed one, to come to the book launch.

Lastly, I’m going to be going dark in the next couple of days as I’m working on book 3 and doing some travelling, and hopefully some research as well!

All the busy & Book Launch news

Sorry for the lack of blogging. I have been busy busy busy. (Warning: this post brought to you today by the words “wonderful” and “fantastic”!)

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Wonderful authors galore – Kate Johnson, Alison May, Helen J Rolfe, Talli Roland & Imogen Howson.

IMG_20150710_134911579_HDRThe trip to London for the RNA Conference was absolutely wonderful.
I missed the Tube strike and all my transport went very smoothly (I didn’t actually need the vast amount of alternate routes I planned at all). The Conference itself was, as always, wonderful. In fact you can get a flavour of it at the Romaniacs website where they have a lovely videos and will be posting interviews with various authors (including yours truly which I’ll link to when it goes up).

My talk “Finding the Fantastic in Your Fiction” seemed to go down very well although I was desperately nervous beforehand. But people came (at least 35 of them because all my handouts went), and asked questions (Yay!) and even came up to me afterwards to say how much they enjoyed it. Even people I didn’t know!

My highlight was probably Julie Cohen’s excellent (as ever) Re-writing workshop. With All the Post It notes in the universe. Including giant ones and a stack for everyone in the audience. And the panel discussion on Saturday – “The Vision for Writers of Passion and Drama” – Katie Fforde, Eileen Ramsay, Jane Johnstone and Daniel Hahn talked about the challenges facing authors today. It was wildly entertaining and very interesting.

Was that a future Game of Thrones spoiler from Jane? We’ll never know…

Chilling by the canal was also wonderful, a way to escape the heat and Kate Johnson and I discussed Buffy for rather a long time…

IMG_20150711_200749104And the Gala dinner was just fab! All very glam. It was held in the beautiful Octogon Library which was a bit of a highlight for librarian-me who came over all fangirl. For a building. Yes…

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I always end up having a little bit of a downer when I have to leave. I meet so many good friends at the conferences and its a place for writers to be writers. I miss that. But roll on next year in Lancaster (8-10th July). Can’t wait.

Back in the real world, final edits went back in for A Hollow in the Hills, the sequel to A Crack in Everything, which comes out on the 7th September.

SO BOOK LAUNCH NEWS!!!!A Hollow In the Hills

We will be having a book launch in the Gutter Bookshop at 6.30pm on Wednesday the 9th September. All welcome. Bring your friends. Bring ALL OF THEM! I will be sourcing cake.

Yesterday was mostly spent working on Book 3 The Darkness at the End, because I had a massive surge of post-conference creativity which saw me write 16 pages in longhand and type up 6000 words. Still more to catch up on. I love it when writing does that.

JudyBlume
Sinead Gleeson interviews Judy Blume

Last night I went to the Pavilion Theatre to see Judy Blume in conversation with Sinead Gleeson. It was a wonderful evening and the warmth and love of the audience was only matched by the warmth and love which radiated from the woman herself. Many of my YA writing friends were there as a gang, our bookclub being just a little hyper beforehand. And during the Q & A. And after… But she has been such an inspiration to so many people and it really showed. It was fantastic to find out she is as lovely as we always wanted her to be.

Die Chroniken der Fae and Preorders

978-3-570-31033-5

So, first up, something I have been dying to share for AGES! A Crack in Everything has been translated in to German and will be on sale in October this year. It’s called Der Chroniken der Fae – Auf Papier und Asche. More details here on the RandomHouse.de website. And have I mentioned the AWESOME cover?

So so beautiful and lovely to see Izzy at last. Blessed by the cover fairies again!

But that’s not all! (as they say on T.V.)

A Hollow in the Hills, the sequel to A Crack in Everything, is up on Amazon for pre-order and on Waterstones as well (and presumably in other places too!)

Something is stirring beneath Dubh Linn.

When an ancient and forbidden power is unleashed, Izzy, who is still coming to terms with her newfound powers, must prevent a war from engulfing Dublin and the fae realm of Dubh Linn.  But by refusing to sacrifice Jinx – fae warrior and her ‘not-really-ex’ – Izzy sets in motion a chain of events which will see them hunted across the city and into the hills where she’ll face the greatest challenge of all.

In the deepest and darkest Hollow, an angel of death is waiting … and the price he asks for his help might be too high …

Pre-order today! 😀