Home
>
Book Reviews
>
A Ghost in Cornwall

A Ghost in Cornwall

This land is my memories. For two thousand years this valley has been mine alone.

I know every rock, every stream and every tree. I know the forces that shape this land and the people who inhabit it.

A billion years ago this land was a migratory trail for the animals of Western Europe. They roamed freely across the huge land of one continent. Millennia passed as the rivers washed silt to the ocean and the sun raised rain to the sky. At that time the mass of Eurasia was joined. The tectonic plates shifted and islands formed, raising proud, green peninsulas on green water, thrust out to the ocean. Long before my time the forces of nature battled along the coasts of Western Europe. From the Southwest, the Gulf Stream warmed and opened the land with summer heat. From the north, ice raged and cracked the rock of what would become the British Isles.

The land tells me it was an epic struggle. The generous heat of earth, venting her spleen, the wash of the water, cooling and circulating air. Rain succoured the land and ran back to the sea, endless cycles, repeating endlessly. The earth shifted, chasms opened and the sea swept in, submerging areas and separating the islands of Britain and Ireland from the mainland.

Spouts of boiling lava spewed from the molten centre of earth to create granite formations, a source of wonder till the end of time. A great rift opened up what is now the Bristol Channel and the Irish Sea, separating the land into distinct areas. Many characteristics still connect Brittany, Ireland, Wales, and Cornwall. Their joining can still be seen in place and people. But veins of power run through the sea, a matrix of energy criss-crosses the land and reaches out around our planet.

The Phoenicians, Egyptians and Greeks journeyed to these coasts even before the Iron Age, in search of Keltic wisdom, since long before the time of my youth. They followed the trail of gold and wisdom across the sea to Cornwall and then to Wales and Ireland. Later, tin trade followed these routes across Brittany and the journeys of wise men and saints to the west of land, the land of setting sun, of Gods and the quest for immortality that haunts us all. Ships and boats from the French and Spanish coasts often sailed to rivers on the south coast of Cornwall in search of trade and journey with the friendly and civilised Keltii, hopefully avoiding the pirates that have ravaged these coasts for millennia.

2000 years ago I was killed trying to save my mother from Portuguese raiders on the river, who stole the gold that came from Ireland. My story is located in the valley of one of these rivers, now called 'River Fowey'. It is a story that I have not been able to tell until now. My own story starts with the visit of Jesus of Nazareth to the river Fowey in 30 AD (according to the Julian Calendar and allowing for a seven year miscalculation). He was twenty three years old. He journeyed on a vision quest to the west-of-land, in search of the wisdom of the Keltii and union with his father spirit. I have spent much time thinking about this moment and my brief encounter with a man who claimed to be Son of God. For hundreds of years I puzzled at his smile, the light in his gaze. He had a quality of being rare in the extreme, an utter and unconditional compassion for all life.

Who am I? A ghost; Fintan, born 2000 years ago and caught in the matrix of nature unable to tell my story until now. I am here, waiting for you.

A Cornish ghost story, 'The Lily' available only at

In The News:

Columbus Dispatch
Book Review | Father's Day: Author's insecurities extend to special son
Columbus Dispatch
His journalistic insecurity is so great, even after the success of Friday Night Lights, that he writes: â€œI had pathetically stopped reading The New York Times Book Review five years earlier because of my raging jealousy of other writers getting rave ...

and more »

Book Review: Beating The Business Cycle
Seeking Alpha
The firm has a rich history of accurately predicting recessions and recoveries and I have enjoyed reading Achuthan's views on the current state of the economy, so I was excited to learn that this book existed, even if it is a bit out of date (published ...

Review: â€œBatman Incorporatedâ€ Returns To DC's â€œNew 52â€ Universe In Excellent ...
Complex.com
Few books can match the raw creativity and energy in this book, and this issue further proves that Chew should be one every comic book fan's radar. What it's about: When the book debuted in 1992, Youngblood was one of the first titles to come out at ...

and more »

Sydney Morning Herald
'Fifty Shades' gives readers something to talk about
STLtoday.com (blog)
FILE- This file combo made of book cover images provided by Vintage Books shows the "Fifty Shades of Grey" trilogy by best-selling author EL James. You can't always tell how explicit a book is by its cover. RT Book Reviews also uses a sensuality rating ...
'Fifty Shades of Grey' Staying On SF ShelvesKELOLAND TV
Berkley Touting Its Own 'Fifty Shades' ImitatorPublishers Weekly
Raunchy read flies off the bookshelvesThe Daily Post

all 324 news articles »

The Book Nook: 'Sparky and Me' by Ron Kaplan and 'A Wedding in Haiti' by Julia ...
Advocate Weekly
Or felt annoyed that you bought a book that was merely so-so? Or closed a book and JUST wanted to talk about it? Or wished you had a place to discover new books? The Book Report Network aims to solve these reader dilemmas, with thoughtful book reviews, ...

HitFix (blog)
Kristen Stewart's 'On The Road': Cannes Reviews Are In!
MTV.com
While they say the movie remains faithful to the book, they feel the film version lacks the spark Kerouac carried throughout the novel. "You can't help but wish that Salles and screenwriter Jose Rivera had focused less on the stories in the book and ...
Cannes Review: 'On The Road' Is A Failed Attempt to Adapt the UnadaptableFilm School Rejects
Review: 'On The Road' makes great use of Kristen Stewart, Garrett Hedlund, and ...HitFix (blog)
Kerouac's "On the Road" hits screen in Cannes debutReuters
New York Times -Contactmusic.com
all 215 news articles »

PR Web
Movie Review: Watching "Bully" Is Not Enough To Make A Difference Says ...
San Francisco Chronicle (press release)
Irene van der Zande, child safety and bullying prevention expert, reviews the movie "Bully," offering advice and caution to adults about letting kids watch the movie and five practical, upbeat actions adults can take right away to help stop bullying ...
Safe and SoundGood Times

all 4 news articles »

Book Review: Successful Partnering
Metropolitan Corporate Counsel
The new chapters added to this treatise in 2012 were discussed in book reviews in our April 2012 and May 2012 issues of The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel. In addition to the new chapters, existing chapters are revised and replaced each year when there ...

Book review: The Watch
MSN India
His earlier book, The Storyteller of Marrakesh, received glowing reviews and established him as a literary heavyweight. The Watch, published by Random House, follows a desperate night-long battle; a group of beleaguered soldiers in an isolated base in ...

The Guardian (blog)
The battle of book reviews
DAWN.com
IS the professional book reviewer an anachronism? In a recent Harvard Business School study of nonfiction reviews, assessments in mainstream media outlets and amateur ratings on Amazon largely converged. Surely we could chuck the review section and ...
Amazon v newspaper: which is the more valuable review?The Guardian (blog)

all 2 news articles »

Google News