Perori – Paul McDermott
ISBN: 9781788648868
£10.99
When Bard and linguist, Easten, wins the right to bear Perori at an Eisteddfod, he little suspects how exceptional this lute really is. ‘Perori’ means ‘make music’ in Welsh, but her music does more than soothe and entertain. When Easten’s liege lord, Caradoc, comes under attack from an aggressive neighbour, Easten sets off to plead for assistance from Caradoc’s relative, High King Cormac of Tara.
On his journey from Cymru to Ireland, Easten discovers more of Perori’s healing powers and soon the instrument reveals that she can also help him understand more languages, a skill that helps with his first task of negotiating safe passage from the small Viking colony in the place that will become Liverpool, still part of the Danegeld. There he also meets a young novitiate monk from Birkenhead Priory, who becomes Easten’s travel companion.
An immersive adventure that resonates with myth and enchantment. Fast-paced and vivid, Perori is a compelling story that will leave you wanting the next instalment. After all, as the saying goes, ‘If an Irishman dies while telling a story, you can be sure he’ll be back to finish it.
Author biography
By the time Paul McDermott got his first Adult library card (aged 11) he’d decided that he could do better than any of the authors available on the shelves of the Junior section, but as a callow youth with a fistful of A-levels he listened to his Head Teacher and went into teaching.
Twenty years of schools and five countries later, when he stopped ‘chalking’ he had an impressive mountain of notebooks filled with ideas, plot outlines, and the beginnings of several stories percolating, hinting at the untold gallons of coffee he’d consume while he turned them into finished books.
Paul describes himself as a ‘moody writer’ who will have several yarns in progress and work on the one he’s in the mood for. It’s a protection against writer’s block, which might (or not) be as true as any of the fiction he writes. And some of his stories are closer to the Truth than others…