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Maggie Quinn
Category:
Historical Fiction
Publisher: World Castle Publishing
Type: Fiction
Copyright: Dec 25, 2017
ISBN-13: 9781629898490
Price: $3.99 (eBook)
In 1840's Ireland, with most of her family wiped out from disease and the fields ravaged by the potato famine, Maggie Quinn, along with her younger brother Patrick, realizes she has no choice but to leave her beloved Ireland. Leaving Ireland isn't as easy as she thinks and she's forced to make a daring escape for the better life she's been told awaits her in America.
Excerpt
Patrick Quinn, a thin, handsome, dark haired boy of fourteen, squared his shoulders as he looked over the soggy field. He was dressed in a tattered shirt and soiled trousers; his well-worn shoes wouldn't last much longer, but he didn't worry about himself. His family depended on him. His nostrils, filled with the nauseating stench of rotting potatoes, made his stomach lurch. This year he'd hoped for a crop. Anything to sustain them. Now it was gone. He felt the weight of the world come crashing down on him.
He stooped down, surveying the field, and then picked up a rotted potato. He studied it carefully for a few seconds, and then stood and holding it tightly in his hand, thrust his arm toward the sky.
"Why!" he cried as he dropped to his knees in the putrid field. Tears streamed down his cheeks.
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A cottage with a thatched roof and walls made of stones sat almost obscured by the brown countryside, seeming to blend into the landscape. Once it had been a beautiful cottage with lush green grass surrounding it, but now it had fallen into disarray. Still, it was home to the proud Quinn family.
Catherine Quinn, the matriarch of the family, lay in her bed, gravely ill. She was a frail woman in her late forties, who looked much older. She'd been a beauty in her day, but now her once dark silky hair had turned gray. The past few years had taken a heavy toll on her, and now she was succumbing to the fever that had claimed so many of her loved ones. Her feeble hands clutched at her threadbare nightdress. She struggled to speak. Her once bright eyes were now dull and almost lifeless as she tried to focus.
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