Denyse Woods ‘Of Sea and Sand’ is set between Oman and Ireland and follows Gabriel’s visit to Oman and the region.
Gabriel arrives in Muscat in 1982, fleeing a shame he cannot escape and a mistake he cannot resolve. Staying with his sister in Oman, he very much feels like a stranger in a new land. Gabriel starts an intense love affair with a woman that no one else has seen. Gabriel’s sister and the locals begin to tell Gabriel about the jinn, supernatural beings borne out of Arabian and Islamic mythology. Gabriel is not convinced that his lover is one of the jinns and continues his affair until one day she suddenly and mysteriously disappears.
Twenty-six years later, Thea Kerrigan, an Irishwoman, arrives in Muscat fleeing her own problems and her own past. Gabriel sees her and believes she is his lost lover. Thea is certain they have never met before, but nonetheless, she is drawn to the deluded, and perhaps dangerous, stranger.
In this novel, Denyse Woods celebrates the beauty of Oman, Iraq, and Ireland and explores the mysterious folklore and the supernatural traditions of these countries. From the glittering wadis of Oman to the hum of Baghdad, and the stark Atlantic coast of Ireland, ‘Of Sea and Sand’ carries the reader around the world in a strange tale of Irish faeries and Arabian jinn, tied together by a story of love and damage and loss.
Denyse Woods is an Irish novelist based in Cork. She was born in Boston and has lived around the world. Her novels include the critically acclaimed ‘Overnight to Innsbruck’ and the bestselling ‘The Catalpa Tree’. Reflecting a long-held interest in the Arab world, three of her books are based in the Middle East. Her work has been translated into six languages. Of Sea and Sand is her sixth novel.
In 2016, as the winner of the Florida Keys Flash Fiction Award, Denyse, who has also written as Denyse Devlin, spent two weeks writing in Ernest Hemingway’s studio in Key West – the first author to do so since Hemingway himself. Her books have been translated into six languages.
Denyse is the Creative Writing Tutor at Mallow College and was Cork County Council’s Library and Arts Service Writer in Residence 2017, which involved mentoring library writers’ groups. From 2009 to 2013, she was the Artistic Director of the West Cork Literary Festival.
Born in Boston, Denyse had a peripatetic childhood. Moving from one country to another gave her a lifelong habit, and love, of writing letters, which proved an excellent apprenticeship for a novelist.
Of Sea and Sand is published by HOOPOE, an imprint of the American University in Cairo Press, buy your copy here:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/9774168038 or https://www.amazon.com/dp/977416803