Curse of the Celts Clara O'Connor (new reading txt) 📖

have offerings been discovered from ancient sites to the Severn Goddess.

I also managed to include the Bore, the lunar tidal wave which surfers jump on to ride up the river.

Dinas Brân

Originally, I was going to use a castle which was less of a detour. But this, this was Rhodri’s home.

Austere, bare, standing guard over a desolate craggy part of North Wales, it dragged everyone further into Wales and once there they kept heading west.

Conwy Castle

My earliest trips to Wales were fleeting at best, visits to the Hay Festival or whipping across the northern coast on my way home to Ireland via Holyhead.

Further explorations of the Welsh countryside gave me many castles to choose from but the sight of this forbidding fortress on the water’s edge makes a lasting impression.

Many of these castles were built to keep the Welsh under the Anglo-Norman heel, but the number and sheer defensive nature of them stand testimony to the ferocity with which the Welsh withstood conquest.

Anglesey and the Holy Isle

When searching for a place near Conwy to stage an attack on a Druid community, inspiration was easily found.

Anglesey was a sacred place to the Druids and a key target of the Roman conquest of Britain. The Roman attacked it not once but twice, the first recorded by the historian, Tacitus, as the Battle of Mona, an older name for Anglesey, where in 60 AD the Romans under General Gaius Paulinus attacked the Druids here and destroyed their sacred sites.

Recipe: Griddle Cakes aka Welsh Cakes aka Pice ar y maen

A friend’s aunt introduced me to the wonder that is “Welsh Cakes” and her journey back to London after a trip home to Hereford was often accompanied by an ice cream container full of these little beauties.

Do try them – fresh and warm, they are a treat!

Auntie Sue’s Welsh Cakes

225g/8 oz of plain flour

½ tsp of baking powder

110g/4 oz of butter, chilled cubed

85g/3 oz of sugar

2 oz of currants or sultanas

½–1 tsp of mixed spice (nutmeg and cinnamon)

A pinch of salt

1 egg

A dash of milk, if needed

Rub butter into flour until crumbly.

Stir in dry ingredients

Mix in egg and milk, if still dry, until you get a stiff dough (similar to short crust pastry)

Roll out to ½ cm thickness and cut into rounds 6-7 cm wide.

Fry on each side 2-3 mins until golden.

Sprinkle with caster sugar. Eat hot or cold.

Thank you, Sue, for sharing the family recipe!

Thank you for reading…

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Dying to know what happens next?

Treat yourself to the third and final instalment in The Once and Future Queen trilogy by the brilliant Clara O’Connor with the utterly enthralling Legend of the Lakes…

You can order your copy right here!

Be sure to follow Clara on Twitter @clara_author for all the latest updates!

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Happy reading!

About the Author

Clara O’Connor grew up in the west of Ireland where inspiration was on her doorstep; her village was full of legend, a place of druids and banshees and black dogs at crossroads. Clara worked in publishing for many years before her travels set her in the footsteps of Arthurian myth, to Mayans, Maasai, Dervishes and the gods of the Ancients. The world she never expected to explore was the one found in the pages of her debut novel, Secrets of the Starcrossed, which is the first book in the The Once and Future Queen trilogy.

Clara now works in LA in TV. At weekends, if not scribbling away on her next book, she can be found browsing the markets, hiking in the Hollywood Hills or curled up by the fireside with a red wine deep in an epic YA or fantasy novel.

Books by Clara O’Connor

The Once and Future Queen Series

Secrets of the Starcrossed

Curse of the Celts

Legend of the Lakes

About the Publisher

Australia

HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty. Ltd.

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Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia

www.harpercollins.com.au

Canada

HarperCollins Canada

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22 Adelaide Street West, 41st Floor

Toronto,