Wild Blood

Coming up to the fifteenth birthday which terminates her ability to 'switch' from human to animal and back, Tess is in a dilemma: which permanent identity will she now assume? Set in a contemporary, but still wild and magical Co. Clare, this novel celebrates the power of tradition and ancestry to influence our heroine's life and traces her understanding of how there is much in that life not susceptible to logical explanation. Thompson evokes the world of Irish myth with real empathy, simultaneously keeping the modern dimension of her narrative clearly in view. Her final chapter, starting with an almost Dionysiac romp on the summit of Ben Bulben, sees past, present (and future) happily joined.