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Irish Times
31-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Ciara Geraghty: Author of 10 novels on turning to children's books
Tell us about your new book, Wanda Broom, illustrated by Fay Austin All Wanda wants is to be an ordinary girl. Which is not easy when your mother is a witch. When Wanda, her mother and her granny are forced to move after yet another spell goes wrong, Wanda is determined to blend in and not attract attention. Then, the world wide web of witches and warlocks informs Esmerelda that she has to undergo an assessment to determine whether she is fit to remain a witch. Wanda is certain her mother will fail the test. Part of her wants her to. Then she can get what she's always wanted. An ordinary life. What inspired you to write a children's book? I got the idea during lockdown when Covid seemed to have given me a terminal case of writer's block. Once I started working on the story, I was cured. It was different to anything I'd written before and there was no editor peering over my shoulder asking if we were there yet. There was a freedom to the project that made the words fly on to the page, as if Esmerelda had cast a spell that worked for a change! What do you think makes a good children's book? No matter who you are writing for, the same rules apply. You need authentic characters, interesting stories. Children are the most discerning readers I know. Patronise them at your peril. Which are your favourites? I loved the Five Find Outers by Enid Blyton. Like Fatty and his pals, I too lived in a sleepy little village but nothing ever happened. I didn't go to boarding school. I'd never eaten a macaroon. But they made my mouth water, all the same. READ MORE Tell us about the podcast, BookBirds, which you co-host with Caroline Grace-Cassidy Another project born out of lockdown. We reread novels we adored in the past and talk about how they – and we – have changed in the intervening years. Who or what made you a writer? Anne of Green Gables is definitely one of the reasons. I loved this 117-year-old literary heroine like she was a real, live girl – a kindred spirit if you will. It was the first time I cried reading a book. When Matthew died, I felt his loss like it was mine. I realised then the power of words on a page and even though I wouldn't start writing for 22 years, a seed was planted in my 12-year-old brain that day. You've written 10 adult novels. Can you detect a common theme in them? I would say female empowerment is a recurring theme. I love a bit of strident feminism. Which one are you proudest of and why? The Stories That Remain, a novella, inspired by the true story of Peggy Mangan, her faithful dog, Casper, and the last walk they took together. I wrote the book for Patricia Scanlan's Open Door series which promotes reading for adults who have struggled with literacy. Which projects are you working on? A book of interconnected short stories, The Relief Road. It's about the inhabitants of a seaside Dublin town over five days during a heatwave, when a group of Irish Travellers set up camp on the relief road around the town. Have you ever made a literary pilgrimage? I recently kayaked to Holy Island on Lough Derg to visit Edna O'Brien's grave. There was nobody else there save for some indifferent sheep, grazing amongst the monastic ruins. I sat by her grave and thanked her for her bravery. For her insistence on being an intellectual, beautiful, sexual, outspoken woman in the Ireland of her youth, which was fraught with danger for such women. The price she paid for living on her own terms was exile. But still, it was here where she returned to in the end. Rest in Power, Edna O'Brien. What is the best writing advice you have ever heard? 'No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.' (Samuel Beckett) Who do you admire the most? I am a great fan of Dr Rosaleen McDonagh, a Traveller and disability activist, feminist, playwright, academic. I love her memoir, Unsettled, a series of essays that offer startlingly clear snapshots of her lived experience, growing up on a halting site, living with cerebral palsy, being placed in residential care, defying expectations. 'Writing is a gift that has saved me from myself,' she writes in the introduction. This slim volume is a gift to readers everywhere. You are supreme ruler for a day. Which law do you pass/abolish? Enshrine in our Constitution the right of all citizens to housing. We want our kids to have their own homes so we can barge in at all hours of the day and night, eat everything, drape 10 coats across the banisters, promise to walk their dog and then never do. That's only fair. Isn't it? Which current book/film/podcast would you recommend? Book: Dublin Written In Our Hearts, celebrating 20 years of One Dublin One Book. Edited by Declan Meade; Film: A Real Pain (written by Jesse Eisenberg); Podcast: The New Yorker Fiction. A writer reads a short story and then discusses it with Deborah Treisman, fiction editor at the New Yorker. Which public event affected you most? In 1990, Nelson Mandela visited Ireland after serving 25 years in Robben Island. He arrived in Dublin the same day the Irish team returned from Italia '90, after winning the World Cup! Mandela invited the Dunnes Stores anti-apartheid strikers – a group of 11 young, working-class people, nine women, two men – on to the stage at the Mansion House so he could thank them for their support throughout their three-year strike. He told them they had changed the world. The most remarkable place you have visited? Rotorua, New Zealand. Not because of how it smells – no offence, Rotorua, but you smell pretty bad. The rotten egg-ish smell of it all is hydrogen sulphide, produced by all the geothermal activity in the area. It's a thermal wonderland, with bubbling mud pools, steaming lakes, erupting geysers. Even the backpackers' hostel I stayed in way back in 1995 had its very own thermal pool. Your most treasured possession ? My violin. It belonged to my grandfather, Michael Trainor, and was made in 1792. Pop, as I called him, worked in the local shoe factory in Baileborough, Co Cavan. He also kept cows, wrote for the local paper, and played in various bands. He could also play piano and the box accordion, but the violin was his favourite. The most beautiful book you own? Page after Page by Heather Sellers, a sort of self-help book for wannabe writers, which I bought when I began writing, at the tender age of 34. It's a beautiful little hardback that fits easily into most handbags, so you don't have to answer any awkward questions when you're starting out. The book made it perfectly acceptable for me to harbour dreams of being a writer. It was like having a miniature mentor in your bag, one who thought you were doing grand. What writers – living or dead – would you invite to your dream dinner party? Elena Ferrante. Because then I'd be the only one who knows who she is. And I'd never tell. She'd appreciate my discretion and we'd become brilliant friends. Paula Meehan. I love how she reads her poems aloud, her shock of white hair and the fact that she's from Dublin, so I feel like she's 'mine' in some small but significant way. Maeve Brennan. I've been playing catch-up with Maeve Brennan's impressive body of work since I read her short story The Springs of Affection in Sinéad Gleeson's anthology, The Long Gaze Back. Maeve would bring some New York style into my home, perching on the edge of the kitchen table in an elegant black suit with a cigarette at the end of a slim ivory holder. Alive to her keen observational skills and the ferocity of her intellect, I'd beg her not to write me into one of her stories. While secretly hoping that she might. The best and worst things about where you live. I live near the sea, which, as an all-year-round sea swimmer, is handy. The worst thing is the bus service. And the lack of cycle lanes. And, while I'm at it, can we get a few more trains, please? What is your favourite quotation? 'That is the mystery about writing: it comes out of afflictions, out of the gouged times, when the heart is cut open.' (Edna O'Brien) Who is your favourite fictional character? Jo March from Little Women. A book to make me laugh? Rachel's Holiday by Marian Keyes. (Warning: This book will also make you cry.) A book that might move me to tears? Charlotte's Web by EB White. Wanda Broom is published by Eriu
New York Times
29-05-2025
- Business
- New York Times
New Romance Novels Brimming With Unhinged Wish Fulfillment
The Witch of Wall Street In a subgenre known for its small towns, THE WITCH OF WALL STREET (Self-published, ebook, $5.99) shoots above the crowd like a skyscraper. Miriam Blum, an investment banker, and Nelson Copperfield, a nonprofit C.E.O., are witches and opposing bidders in a major Manhattan real estate deal. They're also high school rivals, since Nelson often had to rescue Miriam from the snarls caused by her chaos magic. She's learned to control her power, she's fought her way up in the financial world and she's not about to let some smug do-gooder get one over on her now. But he's grown hotter since high school, so she might take him home with her, just once. This ill-advised hookup turns disastrous when Miriam's chaos magic scatters their enchanted possessions across the city, forcing them on a quest through the supernatural nooks and crannies of New York. It's refreshing to see magic as just one more subcultural layer woven through the texture of the city (and I would perish at the magical dim sum place with no regrets). Also refreshing: Miriam is a bit villainous and knows it, which I always appreciate in a heroine. Etkind's book is not so much about choosing pure good versus pure evil, but rather about how to create opportunities for doing good in a world full of shades of gray. Along Came Amor The need to upend the status quo is also a theme in ALONG CAME AMOR (Avon, 512 pp., paperback, $18.99), the third and final volume in Daria's gloriously angst-saturated Primas of Power series. You'll be fine starting with this volume, but the trilogy as a whole is well worth the time; these three books have more concentrated pining than an Austen movie marathon on a rainy afternoon. Ava Rodriguez is fresh off a painful divorce a lot of her family members blame her for. So when a chance encounter leads to one night with a sexy hotel C.E.O. — and then another, and another — she doesn't see the need to tell any of her friends or relatives about it. All she wants is one thing in her life she can enjoy without anyone peevishly asking how long until she screws this up, too. Roman Vázquez worked his way up from a distillery floor to the owner of a luxury hotel chain. But now his baby sister is heading off to college, his mother has decided she wants an apartment of her own and Roman misses feeling needed. Meeting Ava gives him someone to focus all that emotional energy on — and although he's trying to take it slow, every night they share leaves him wanting more. It's all a delicious secret — until they're introduced as best man and maid of honor in Ava's cousin's wedding to Roman's childhood best friend. Now every flicker of flirtation risks calling down the mockery of Ava's critical, gossipy, exasperating relatives. Surrounded by sharp-tongued aunts, gimlet-eyed siblings and deliriously happy couples, Ava and Roman are just about ready to crack beneath the pressure. Ava is one of the best lonely heroines I've read in months, and the book's bachelorette party scene is pure unhinged wish fulfillment. Renegade Girls Finally, there's nothing that starts summer off right like reading comics outdoors in the sun. And for that, we have RENEGADE GIRLS (Little, Brown Ink, 304 pp., paperback, $18.99), the story of a stunt-girl reporter and the photographer she falls for in Gilded Age New York. Nell's mother hopes she'll make a grand society marriage, but Nell would rather be a self-sufficient reporter — and she'd like to write serious pieces, not just the society fluff her editor assigns her. The only person who seems to understand is Alice, a photographer whose excellent social pedigree hides a home that's much more queer-accepting than Nell's. When Nell learns from a servant friend about dangerous conditions in a nearby garment factory, she goes undercover as a laborer — and is soon reporting on dangerous working conditions around the city, with Alice's photographs providing visual proof. But the factory owners are on the hunt for the anonymous reporter, and some of them are closer to Nell than she realizes. We love to see a feminist historical romance aware of the ways that wealthy white ladies can oppress other women — factory workers, immigrants, women of color and queer women. Direct but not too heavy, bright with color and gentle in tone, Neus's graphic novel is an absolute dream of an afternoon read.
Daily Mail
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Nicole Kidman offers an update on her 'fun and witchy' sequel to Practical Magic with Sandra Bullock
is opening up about her highly-anticipated sequel to her 1998 supernatural film Practical Magic. The 57-year-old actress starred alongside Sandra Bullock in the original film, playing sisters who come from a long line of witches and use their powers to defeat an evil spirit. The film wasn't a box office hit, earning just $68.3 million worldwide from a $75 million budget, but gained a cult following in the years that followed. Now Kidman and Bullock are reuniting for a sequel, with a director they have both worked with, Susanne Bier. The filmmaker directed Bullock in the 2018 Netflix film Bird Box and Kidman in HBO 's The Undoing and Netflix's The Perfect Couple. Kidman appeared at the Cannes Film Festival to take part in Kering's Women in Motion event where she offered an update on the sequel (via THR). The 57-year-old actress starred alongside Sandra Bullock in the original film, playing sisters who come from a long line of witches and use their powers to defeat an evil spirit 'Sandy's worked with her, too, so the two of us were like, well, this is the perfect triangle because we all know each other so well,' Kidman began. 'So to be able to work together on something that is fun and witchy, that's fun and it has something very different to say (than Babygirl),' Kidman added of her last film. Bier will direct from a screenplay by Akiva Goldsman, who co-wrote the original alongside Alice Hoffman and Robin Swicord for director Griffin Dunne. Both Kidman and Bullock will produce alongside original Practical Magic producer Denise Di Novi. It's unclear if there are plans to bring back any other original Practical Magic stars such as Stockard Channing (Aunt Frances), Dianne Wiest (Aunt Jet) or Evan Rachel Wood, who played the daughter of Bullock's character Sally in her second film role. It's also unclear when production will begin, though Warner Bros. recently handed out a September 18, 2026 release date. While no plot details have been announced yet, producer Di Novi told People that the sequel will honor the spirit of the original. 'I think the big mistake people make with sequels is when they kind of want to reinvent the wheel and be totally original and surprise people that it's different or whatever,' the producer said. She added that the entire team, 'gets how important the first movie is to so many people, women in particular, and we want to honor that for sure.' 'There's a joyousness to that movie, and there's such beautiful themes of sisterhood and family and acceptance, tolerance, love,' Di Novi added. 'Just the title that Alice Hoffman, the amazing author, thought of that's now become part of the vernacular of is that there's magic in daily life, in love, in family, in sisterhood,' she said. 'It's magical, and we all have our gifts, and women have very particular and specific gifts. We really want to honor all of that,' the producer said. Di Novi had previously hinted the story will be adapted from Hoffman's 2021 novel The Book of Magic, the fourth book in Hoffman's Practical Magic series.
