NEWS

UPDATED SEPTEMBER 2024

FIDELMANIACS – JOIN/RENEW ONLINE!
MUST HAVE TITLES FOR ALL FIDELMANIACS! CLICK BOOKS FOR DETAILS!

FÉILE FIDELMA 2025 UPDATE

From the Cashel Arts Committee, who is putting on the event:

A reminder that registration for next year’s Féile Fidelma has now opened HERE.

Weekend registration will be €200 with a €20 discount for those who register on or before October 1st 2024. The registration fee covers the opening reception, a special registration pack with a souvenir booklet, all lectures, talks, workshops and trips, tea/coffee breaks and the gala dinner with entertainment.

A final decision will be made on October 1st when we know if 35 people have registered. We will, of course, keep you updated of developments.

Please feel free to share details of this event and this email with anyone that you think may be interested in attending.

We look forward to hopefully meeting you in Cashel next year.

Le gach dea-ghuí agus beannacht,
Emily Kirwan,
On behalf of the Féile Fidelma Organising Committee

NEWEST SISTER FIDELMA MYSTERY NOW OUT (UK)!
PROPHET OF BLOOD, Headline Book Publishing, London, July 2024. Hardcover, ISBN 978 1 4722 9609 2, £22; as well as eBook ISBN 9 781 4722 9611 5 £22; and Audible downloadable (read by Caroline Lennon) ISBN 9 781 4722 9612 2 at £24.99; Severn House, USA, October 2024, ISBN Hardback 978 1 4483 1258 0, 352pp., $29.99.

Autumn, AD 672. While out walking, Abbot Brocc was shocked to encounter the sinister apparition of a young woman, cloaked entirely in grey, who foretold his impending death. Dismissing the soothsayer’s words, Brocc nevertheless felt concerned enough to ask for Sister Fidelma’s advice on the matter.

But, by the time Fidelma and her companions arrive at the remote abbey of Dair Inis, Brocc has been found dead in the abbey’s sweat house – as the mysterious prophetess had predicted.

Plunged into a world of uncertainty, where believers of the Old and New Faiths are violently opposed, Fidelma, Eadulf, and Dego embark on a journey fraught with danger, in a puzzling and perilous quest for the truth behind Brocc’s murder…?

SEPTEMBER 2024 ISSUE OF THE BREHON NOW OUT TO ALL SOCIETY MEMBERS!
Our 23rd year in print!! Contents of Vol. XXIII, No. 3 of The Brehon* – The Journal of The International Sister Fidelma Society – include:

  • News Round-Up
  • Latest Japanese Release
  • Prophet of Blood – A Short Review by Longtime Member Christine Grit
  • Praise from French Readers for the Latest Novel
  • Another Reprint for Peter’s Non-Fiction Ancient Celtic History
  • Who is that Knocking on my Door? – A Memoir by Peter Tremayne
  • Distinguished Founder Member of the Society
  • Continued Praise From a Germany-Based Member by Founder Member Ruairidh Muileach
  • How I Discovered the Treasure Called the “Sister Fidelma Mysteries” by Longtime Member Reidun Drange
  • Gildas’ Abbey Nowadays by Dutch Publisher and Longtime Member Hans van den Boom
  • A Problem for a Future Biographer
  • Collector’s Talk: Fidelma Spanish Editions by Jordi Serrano Martinez
  • Readerspeak
  • Editorspeak

and more…

As always, we would ask for your help in spreading word about our Society on every social media platform available. This is more important than ever, now that the wheels of the engine are finally rolling.

Not to let them fade from your memories, but we wouldn’t be doing our job it we didn’t remind you about the Society’s book publications (details elsewhere on this page), and the fact that they would make excellent gifts for the upcoming holidays season(s). Those titles may be purchased through the author’s Amazon page at amazon.com/author/davidrobertwooten.

As to renewing your membership, the quickest way is always through our payment portal at https://fidelma.square.site/.

A SPECIAL BONUS FOR FIDELMA FANS!!
As those of you who have already purchased THE SISTER FIDELMA COMPENDIUM: A Reader’s Guide to the Sister Fidelma Mysteries of Peter Tremayne will know (wait… what???… you haven’t ALL purchased it yet?… the chastising shall commence… see below for complete details), owing to the sheer length of the book, I was forced to publish this in black and white/greyscale, rather than color. In color, it would have sold for 3-4 times as much, and then NONE of you would have bought it.

All that aside, the one comment I have continued to receive is “It’s a pity we can’t see more detail in the illustration of King Colgu’s Fortress,” showing the Rock as it would most likely have stood in Fidelma’s time. Most readers of The Sister Fidelma Mysteries (though not YOU, of course) often mistakenly envision the title character residing on the Rock of Cashel as it now stands. In truth, one would need to completely raze the entire top of The Rock of all its 11th-century-forward ecclesiastical buildings and travel back several centuries to before Fidelma’s time (the 7th century) to see what was most likely built atop the plateau.

I created the conceptual layout of the Royal Fortress of King Colgú atop The Rock of Cashel, ca. 7th century, specifically for The Compendium. The structures were proposed by Peter Tremayne “from ancient Irish records, in the myths, the annals and chronicles, as well as archaeological evidence,” so you know there could be no better source. I can guarantee you not a single tour guide atop The Rock today has even the slightest clue about any of this. But YOU do.

And I have now added both a small and large poster version of the same illustration as appears in the book, in full color, through the Society’s CafePress page at https://www.cafepress.com/eclecticon/. Just as with the Map of Fidelma’s World (also on the same page), this is a high-quality print job, suitable for framing or just stick up with chewing gum (I don’t actually recommend the latter).

So, head over to the Cafepress shop to get your own copy (and no, it won’t have all the words scribbled all over it like the blurred sample shown)!

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