Amazon The Cyber Miracles The Cyber Miracles E-store Powell's Books Category:  Mainstream Publisher: CreateSpace ISBN-10:  1434840980 Type: Fiction Pages: 256 Copyright: January 2008 ISBN-13: 9781434840981 What happens when faith and digital technology collide?      Maeve Kenny's life was going exactly as she'd planned. At 30 she was dating a soap opera star and had an exciting public relations career with an Irish-owned firm in Manhattan. Then three sudden events turned everything upside down, and Maeve found herself fleeing her Queens apartment for sanctuary back home upstate in Binghamton.      As she tries to readjust to the dramatic changes in her life, Maeve says she needs a miracle to turn her life around. Who would have thought the whole world would be watching when it happens? Excerpt Faith can be a North Star for some people, guiding them steadfastly throughout their lives. Others, well… they just plain wing it. Then there are the people who believe they can plan every detail, every turn in their lives. Such bold expectations tempt misfortune, however, and Maeve Kenny never saw it coming. Something was wrong, she thought as she checked her answering machine. No messages. Why hadn’t she heard from Ciaran? His flight home from Toronto should have landed an hour ago. He could have at least called to say he had arrived safely. Maeve was a bit concerned that her boyfriend seemed distracted lately, but she figured it was the late hours he’d been keeping on the set of the soap opera, The Blessed and The Damned. His character was featured in a complicated international plot that included scenes shot in both Toronto and the Bahamas. The network was promoting the story line heavily, and with such high visibility, Maeve and Ciaran both hoped he’d snag a lucrative film role offer. They were confident to the point of expecting it would happen. It was something they discussed that crisp night in October, when they lingered over a bottle of Pinot Grigio at their favorite café in Little Italy. There in the candlelight, they shared their ambitions with each other. At the moment anything seemed possible. Their lives already seemed to be following charmed paths. Why shouldn’t they expect to get everything they dreamed for?

Great craic! by Susan Hubbard, 3/2/08
This first novel is funny and wise — and bittersweet, at times. Maeve is Everywoman and, at the same time, a very specific protagonist on a very particular path. Follow her down it, and find all manner of surprises and delights. Highly recommended.

Feckin' Fun, by C. Solimini, 3/30/08
Get your hopes up! That’s the message of The Cyber Miracles and its charming heroine, Maeve Kenny, who turns her public crisis into personal redemption (though not without obstacles and embarrassments along the way). Who ISN’T looking for a miracle? Ultimately, author Mary Pat Hyland reassures us that our prayers will be answered, though not necessarily in the way we’d hoped. (Or as the Rolling Stones put it: You can’t always get what you want, but you just might find you get what you need.)
Maeve and friends also prove to be the perfect tour guides to the Southern Tier of New York State and the folkways of Irish-Americans. Failte! So after you stop off for a spiedie and grab a Guinness, savor The Cyber Miracles!

Back to Binghamton and a test of faith and strength, by Bill Jaker, host of WSKG Radio's Off the Page
“The Cyber Miracles” by Mary Pat Hyland opens with a scene of apprehension and glamorous excitement in New York City, turns from a silly misfortune to a personal tragedy and then whips its protagonist through incidents that are both trying and comical before settling into themes of genuine religious experience. All this happens with an Irish lilt and, for readers in New York’s Southern Tier, a strong sense of local color.