Category Archives: Book connections

Guide to Irish terms and names in The Awakening

Instead of a glossary in the back of The Awakening, I thought it would be helpful to have a list of definitions for the Irish you see in The Awakening along with a link to hear the pronunciations. They are listed in order of appearance in the book so it’s easy to follow along.

Click on the word itself to get the pronunciation link. When there are choices in dialect, go with Connacht.

Very special thanks go to the Macmillan Audio team for coming up with the list as they prepared for recording The Awakening. Any and all errors are mine.

Talamh –  earth, ground, land
Taoiseach – chief, leader
Cosantoir – defender, protector
Clann – family
Misneach – Courage, spirit  
Sláinte! – health  
Mo stór – my treasure 
Ogham – early Irish alphabet 
Bodhrán – traditional Irish drum  
Fáilte – welcome 
Déithe – gods  
libh – you  
Sidhe -fairy 
Dobhar-chú – King Otter
Cróga – brave 
Lasair – blaze
Mo dheartháir – my brother
Athame – blade
Lough – lake 
Fírinne – truth 
Finnguala – fair of shoulders
Lir – sea
Tuatha Dé Danann – tribe of the gods 
Taoisigh – chief/leader  
Ceilidh – a gathering with folk music and singing, traditional dancing, and storytelling  
Mo bandia – my goddess 
Mo chroi – my love, my darling  
Samhain – end of the harvest season

And here’s how to pronounce some names – which are also in order of appearance.

Aisling –  https://forvo.com/word/aisling/#ga
Tarryn –  https://youglish.com/pronounce/tarryn/english?
Mairghread – https://www.pronouncenames.com/pronounce/mairghread
O’Ceallaigh – https://forvo.com/search/%C3%93%20Ceallaigh/ga/
Siobhan –  https://forvo.com/word/siobhan/#en
Eian – https://youglish.com/pronounce/eian/english?
Lonrach –  https://forvo.com/search/lonrach/
Keisha –  https://forvo.com/word/keisha/#en
Finola –  https://forvo.com/word/finola/#en
Kavan – https://youglish.com/pronounce/kavan/english?
Mac an Ghaill – https://www.pronouncekiwi.com/Mairtin%20Mac%20an%20Ghaill
Igraine –  https://forvo.com/search/igraine/cy/ 
Odran –  https://forvo.com/search/Odran/
Mahon – https://forvo.com/search/Mohan/en/
Aoife –  https://forvo.com/word/aoife/#ga
Shana – https://forvo.com/search/Shana/
Mina –  https://youglish.com/pronounce/mina/english?
Yseult –  https://forvo.com/word/yseult/#fr
Deaglan –  https://forvo.com/word/deagl%C3%A1n/#ga
Bria – https://youglish.com/pronounce/bria/english?
Mac Aodha – https://forvo.com/word/mac_aodha/#ga
Ultan – https://forvo.com/search/Ult%C3%A1n/
Devlin –  https://forvo.com/search/devlin/
Beryl –  https://forvo.com/word/beryl/#en
Largus –  https://forvo.com/search/largus/
Minga –  https://forvo.com/search/minga/bar/
Og –  https://forvo.com/search/og/ga/
Aidan –  https://forvo.com/word/aidan/#en
Daryn-  https://youglish.com/pronounce/daryn/english?
Ywain – https://forvo.com/search/ywain/
Birgit –  https://forvo.com/search/Birgit/de/

The Register – 11/4/16

For the rest of the year, I plan to compile a weekly round up of social media goings on, photos that appeal to me and tidbits of  info that just don’t fit into other posts.  So, not a Cranky Publicist post (like the one I’ve drafted in my head about how can you be an In Death fan if you misspell Roarke???)  but a neater way to keep you all filled in on what’s new and what’s not.

First up:  the Inn BoonsBoro package featuring an Evening with Nora sold out within hours.  I’m pretty sure if it goes smoothly, there will be another one in the future.  Stay tuned.

Next, St. Martin’s continues to be super excited about their first book with Nora/JD — Echoes in Death.  They will release small bits — one liners really — over the weeks to come to whet appetites even more.  Here’s the first one. echoes-whim-1

(BTW, Heroes & Heartbreakers has some excellent features about and by authors, reviews, reveals and other fun reader-y things. This morning starts with a discussion about Nora Roberts or Nora Ephron — have to love a good Nora, right?)

Continuing on the St. Martin’s Press theme (they are more excited than anyone about working with Nora!):  they have an ongoing sweepstakes tied into Echoes in Death.  The last two prizes are up for grabs soon — the last one is an Eve style leather coat!  Details and rules* are here.

They also created an amazing pop-art poster for Echoes in Death and will giveaway to readers in the US and Canada (ex. Quebec)** who upload their pre-order receipts before midnight, Feb. 6, 2017. All details are listed here.

And, because excitement this big can’t be contained, they’ve revealed the cover for September 2017’s Secrets in Death.9781250123152_fc

I’ll have more information about it next week. Pre-order links are coming on line, but it’s still a little too early for some.  Will list all the pre-order links next week.  Promise!

Third:  Love Between the Covers is now available on Netflix and will be out on dvd on December 6 — same date as Island of Glass.  I posted about the documentary here.

Finally, at Saturday’s signing two readers (names escape me right now) told me all about one of their phones that took photos by saying  “Cheese!” “Shoot” or “Capture!”  It was a Samsung 7 and I have a 6.  Nora will attest that I pouted about not having that amazing capability — which just made us laugh.

Back at the Fortress of Solitude that night, I googled voice triggered photos and found out that I could make my Samsung 6 do it.  And it did!  Here’s the evidence.

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Nora, Sarah and Kat enjoying my thrill of snapping a photo by saying “Cheese!”

Then we set BW’s Samsung up as well.  So happy faces all around, except for Nora’s pout that her iPhone didn’t take photos by talking to it.

Still she smiled for the photo.

OK, that’s week one of The Register.

Comments, questions, things you’ve found on your own?  Share in the comments.

Laura

* While we love our worldwide readers and hate they have to miss out on the fun, there are varying rules and regulations regarding contests and sweepstakes in countries outside the US and Canada making it problematic and extremely difficult to create global contests.

**  Canadians in Quebec can’t enter due to their own tight rules on sweepstakes.  All other Canadians must answer a math question to make it a test of skill rather than chance.

How to Survive February

What is up with this month? It can never seem to make up its mind. How many days should I have? it wonders. And every four years it decides to toss in one more. Should I dump two or three feet of snow–yeah, why not. And why not follow that with temperatures in the 60s, just to tease everybody before I throw out some ice, more snow and drop that temp to freeze butts off.
 
February’s a sociopath.
 
I deal with it by staying home, out of its chuckling way. And if I have to go out, I simply count down the time until I’ll be back inside. And in that way, I use February’s mad ego to get lots of stuff done.
 
I write, I cook, I workout, I finish my full-house purge, I read, I watch TV. While I might think wistfully of spring, of digging in the dirt, throwing open the windows, I remind myself I don’t have to go out there to get things done. I’m thinking that right now as the chilly rain’s pounding outside in the dull, gray February gloom.
 
When I finish this blog, I’ll go out to my little gym and for about 90 minutes, I’ll be too focused on me–the sweat, the doing–to care about the stupid rain or the lumps of snow that have yet to melt.
 
I did the same yesterday–I run on routine–then (as Laura predicted) I spent a big chunk of the day in the kitchen. If it’s got to be winter, you might as well spend some of your Sunday making a good, rich beef stew–and drop in some dumplings. [Note from Laura — there’s no recipe, Nora just went with the flow on this one.] I had, for some reason, a surplus of eggs, so made my man very happy by deviling some.

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Stew with dumplings

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Deviled eggs

 
Today, I may fuss around the house. I might bake some bread. Since a rainy day provides the perfect backdrop, I may sit in front of the fire and read. February, for all its smirking smugness gives us all the opportunity to reflect on what we like to do in our own snug spaces. Surviving it just means allowing ourselves to do just that before spring comes and we throw open the windows again.
 
If I choose the fire and the book today, it will be To Kill A Mockingbird. We lost a literary luminary in Harper Lee. For me, Mockingbird is as close to a perfect book as ever written, and its beauty, its power, its voice lives on. I’ve read it countless times, and each time it grabs my heart, engages my mind, enlightens and entertains me.
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As does the movie adaptation. Every time I’m told: No, no movie from your books–they’ll ruin it, they always do, I think of the brilliant film based on Harper Lee’s masterpiece. Again, for me, as close to perfection as it gets. There are other adaptations that hit that mark for me, but this is the standard. Yes, it can be done, and done beautifully. In fact, I may pull out my DVD and watch the movie again, too.
 
Thanks, February, you crazy bitch, for giving me a crappy Sunday to do just exactly what I want to do.
 
Now, just a little note. As often happens when a new In Death comes out, we revisit the calls for babies, kindly grandmothers–and Brotherhood’s no exception. I’ll repeat here Eve is NOT pregnant, not getting pregnant, and will not find some loving blood relation. I won’t get into all the reasons as I’ve done so before. But I also realize there are people new to the blog and/or FB who may not have read the previous blogs where I explain those reasons.
 

Enjoy your countdown to February’s inevitable demise, and take a day to do what you most want to do.

Nora

The NR Effect

Nearly three years after The Perfect Hope hit stores, a week still doesn’t go by in which a reader realizes that Inn BoonsBoro is a real place (Turn the Page and Vesta too).  A good many readers followed Nora and BW’s rehab of love that restored a broken down, tree-growing, pigeon-hosting old building to its current glory.  But there are plenty of others who read the Inn BoonsBoro Trilogy and thought they were fabulous works of fiction, only to be stunned when they saw the Inn on CBS Sunday Morning or read about it in a newspaper.

One of the best emails that ever came to my inbox was from a reader congratulating Nora on the fabulous marketing campaign for the trilogy that went the extra mile by creating a realistic website for the fictional Inn BoonsBoro.  I had a great laugh, then corrected the assumption.

Boonsboro is not the first place to feel what I call the NR Effect.  The Born In and the Gallaghers of Ardmore trilogies still draw readers to both County Clare and Ardmore.  In fact, I just heard from my Ardmore contact John Supple who wrote “we still have a number of people calling on a regular basis to Ardmore all because of Nora and some often find they would like to stay over in this beautiful village but would move on due to lack of accommodation.

“We now have a number of people within Ardmore who have accommodation — from houses to lovely cottages to Bed and Breakfasts and Hotels — to rent for people who want to spend an extra few days.” He said if any readers are planning a trip to Ardmore, to contact John at cottageardmore@gmail.com to arrange quality accommodation to suit any budget.

Ashford Castle and the town of Cong still see many Cousins O’Dwyer readers and we hear often from people who have gone on the falcon walks there.

There is a very clever In Death reader who has created her own personal tours of NYC that visit landmarks still standing in 2058.  And we get requests all the time for suggestions for places to travel.

A couple of weeks ago, Buddy MacLean, the owner of The Lodge at Buckberry Creek in Gaitlinburg TN called Inn BoonsBoro.   A guest that week visited because she’d read about the resort in The Liar.  Buddy was astonished when the guest showed him her copy of the book and went off to purchase one.  That same week a bus tour group stayed on the property and when Buddy mentioned The Liar, the women on the tour said they’d all purchase a copy before they headed home.

After looking it up on the internet, I asked Nora about choosing The Lodge (POTENTIAL SPOILER AHEAD:  this is the hotel where the woman who confronts Shelby about Richard stays when she comes to Rendezvous Ridge).  Nora said she was looking for a pretty, sort of out-of-the-way place. She used The Google, looked at a few and liked the look of The Lodge, and the name. It just worked.

Well, the team at The Lodge at Buckberry Creek is so pleased by their ties to The Liar, they wrote back and said they created a discount code for Nora’s readers.  Readers who wish to stay at The Lodge at Buckberry Creek can mention the promo code NORA2015 when booking and they will receive a 10% discount on their room rate and will receive a $50 voucher towards dinner.  The promo applies to guests who book prior to 10/2/15 and only valid on stays prior to 7/2/16.  Cannot be combined with other discounts.

If my husband and I weren’t building a home this summer I think we would be heading to the Smokies.

Laura