FIVE YEARS OF HIRAETH — A BIRTHDAY LETTER TO THE BOOK THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING

Mar 8
2 min read

Five years ago today, HIRAETH was born. And I want to mark this birthday properly, because this book deserves it.

I wrote HIRAETH because I am Welsh at heart, because I have always loved dragons, and because I could not stop thinking about a woman who spent her whole life feeling like she belonged somewhere she could not name. The concept of hiraeth — that particular Welsh longing, that ache of nostalgia for somewhere real or imagined — felt like the truest way to describe that experience. I built a story around it, set it in the beautiful village of Beddgelert in Snowdonia, and sent Ellis Clarke there to find out what she had been missing.

What she finds is extraordinary. She finds a landscape that recognises her. She finds a community that welcomes her without question. And she finds Luke Maddox — a Guardian of Wales, a red Dragon, a man who has lived long enough to know the difference between meeting someone and finding someone. When Merlin stands before Ellis and calls her home, Luke understands that she is the one he has been protecting the land for, in some deep and inarticulate way. But Ellis must come to that understanding herself. She must claim her heritage, her power, and her Guardian — or lose him entirely.

Five years later, this story still gets to me. I still feel a little breathless when I think about the mountains in that final act, and about everything Ellis chooses to become. She is one of the bravest characters I have ever written, precisely because her bravery looks so quiet on the surface.

If you have read HIRAETH, thank you from the bottom of my heart. If you have been meaning to but haven't yet, today — its birthday, its fifth birthday — feels like exactly the right moment. The sale runs through tomorrow, the 9th of March, at most major retailers excluding Amazon.

Here's to five more years. And to every reader who has ever felt a longing they could not name. 💙🐉

📖 https://books2read.com/Hiraeth2021

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