WHITE FEATHERS

Two lives in danger - her lover's and her sister's. But she must choose only one.

At the breakout of the first World War, Irish emigrant Eva Downey is forced by her stepsister to make a terrible choice: to present her beloved Christopher, who refuses to fight, with a white feather of cowardice, or no money will be given for her sister Imelda's life-saving treatment in Switzerland. When Eva chooses her sister over her lover, she is stunned by her own actions and allows herself to be bullied into a disastrous marriage. Upon being widowed, she volunteers for nursing duty behind the lines and is reunited with a shell-shocked Christopher, a shadow of the man he once was. Thirty years and two World Wars later, Jamaican soprano Lucia Percival comes out of retirement to sing the part of the Muse of War, from a musical setting of First World War poet Gabriel Hunter's angry epic poem “The Dove” about conscientious objectors. The inspiration for Hunter's terrible Muse of War is none other than Lucia's friend, Eva. Susan Lanigan has a Masters in Writing from NUI Galway, and has been shortlised for the Hennessy New Irish Writing Award, Fish Short Story Award and the Bristol Prize. This is her first novel, which won her a coveted place in the Irish Writers' Centre Novel Fair 2013.