BLOG TOUR & REVIEW: The Lost Children by Theresa Talbot @aria_fiction @theresa_talbot
The Lost Children
by Theresa Talbot
Thank you to Aria Fiction for letting me be today's Blog Tour stop!
Continue below for a synopsis, about the author, my review and an excerpt!
Publish Date: April 1, 2018
Kindle Edition
466 pages
Series: Book One
Genres: Thriller, Mystery, Crime Fiction
First in a gripping new thriller series featuring investigative
journalist Oonagh O'Neil. Perfect for fans of Broadhurch.
TV journalist and media
darling Oonagh O’Neil can sense a sinister coverup from the moment an elderly
priest dies on the altar of his Glasgow church. Especially as his death comes
as she is about to expose the shocking truth behind the closure of a Magdalene
Institution. The Church has already tried to suppress what happened to decades
of forgotten women. Is someone also covering their tracks?
DI Alec Davies is
appointed to investigate the priest's death. He and Oonagh go way back. But
what secrets lie behind the derelict Institution's doors? What sparked the
infamous three-day riot that closed it? And what happened to the girls that
survived the institution and vowed to stay friends forever?
From Ireland to Scotland.
From life to death.
Purchase here: Amazon | Kobo | Google Play | iBooks
Theresa Talbot is a BBC
broadcaster and freelance producer. A former radio news editor, she also hosted
The Beechgrove Potting Shed on BBC Radio Scotland, but for many she will be
most familiar as the voice of the station's Traffic & Travel. Late 2014 saw
the publication of her first book, This Is What I Look Like, a humorous
memoir covering everything from working with Andy Williams to rescuing chickens
and discovering nuns hidden in gardens. She's much in demand at book festivals,
both as an author and as a chairperson.
"Hi I’m Theresa Talbot – I was born at a
very young age in Glasgow and things developed from there. Strange as it may
seem now, my first and only baby-sitter was a huge German Shepherd called
Rusty. Rusty would guard my pram outside our flat in Finnieston, when it was
deemed normal to leave your children outside unattended. This was the 60s when
Finnieston was a densely populated working class area in the west end of the
city. Now it’s densely populated by Hipsters who roam wild among the trendy new
cafes and bars selling organic food served on rustic bits of slate. I mean the
Hipsters no harm, but had they been on the scene in the 60s I’m sure my ever
resourceful Mother would have found them more gainful employment and roped them
into watching my pram for a few hours, leaving Rusty Dog to run free in the
local park.
Rusty belonged to my God-Mother Ruby who
‘lived-in-sin’ with a Polish chap who ran a speakeasy downstairs from us. I was
devastated when I discovered that Ruby wasn’t actually my Fairy Godmother – but eternally grateful that through her I was
familiar with the term ‘living-in-sin’ from a very young age and gorged myself
on the possibilities of what that could possibly mean. I was eighteen before I
knew what a speakeasy was, but that didn’t hold the same appeal.
I can’t remember when I decided I would
like to become a writer, certainly not as a child, as to me being ‘a writer’
was something posh people did. I never even considered it could be a job, and certainly
not my job. I’ve always had a fertile
imagination and loved to read and hear stories. It was so much part of my
childhood. My Mum & Dad were Irish and told great ghost stories that I
lapped up, my Grandfather too, he would always have a tale that was just that
wee bit scarier than everyone else’s – and swore each word was true. At bedtime
I drove my entire family mental demanding story after story. My older siblings
would beg to be let sleep as I pinched them awake demanding ‘just one more’.
Perhaps it was this background of fantasy
and ghost stories that first inspired me to write. One I remember particularly
well was my Dad telling me that if a priest dies on the altar saying mass, then
his ghost has to come back and finish the service. Bear in mind I was five
years old when I first heard this – no wonder I had insomnia from an early age!
But it was that actual tale that made me want to write my own ghost story. I
thought it was super-scary.
Strangely enough I never did write a ghost
story. I sort of fell into journalism after a range of jobs as diverse as
Library Assistant, Care Home Assistant and Medical Rep. But there was always
something niggling at the back of my mind telling me to write. I’d toyed with a
few writers groups, wrote short stories etc, but never really took myself seriously
as a writer. Looking back now I think that was a lack of confidence.
But I never gave up! It wasn’t until the year
2000 that I considered actually sitting down and writing a book. I didn’t have
a clue what I was doing, no plan, no structure, I just started writing. In fact
it was that early ghost story of the priest dying on the altar that gave me my
opening line and it blossomed from there.
At the time I was a broadcast journalist
and was researching a story surrounding Glasgow’s Magdalene Institution which
closed down in 1958. I thought it would make a great radio feature, but the
more I looked into it the more absorbed I became. There was a bigger story to
tell and I decided that turning it into a work of fiction would give me greater
dramatic licence and more freedom.
That story eventually became ‘The Lost
Children,’ and I’m thrilled to bits that Team Aria love it as much as I do.
I’m still a broadcast journalist, with the
emphasis on broadcast rather than journalism. My day job is basically talking
out loud on the wireless; BBC Radio Scotland rope me in a few times a week as a
traffic & travel presenter & newsreader. I also presented the weekly
gardening programme for a few years –
but that’s given way to some programme where men hit balls with sticks.
Oh I’ve got so much more I want to tell
you, but sadly we’ve run out of time!"
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My Review:
A fantastic first in a series from Theresa Talbot. Rather than seeing this mystery/thriller through the eyes of law enforcement, instead we see through Oonagh's eyes - a journalist who is looking into the Magdalene children and how they were forced into asylums by their family and the Catholic church where they were tortured, stripped of their dignity and suffered for their "sins"... mostly created by their own families. Sweep them under the rug. Sell their children. Out of sight. Out of mind. But what happens when they rebel and secrets come out YEARS later.
This definitely does not shed a good light on the Catholic church, priests and the means that people went to in the 1950s (really not that long ago) to put problem children in their place. There were some harrowing moments and hard reads in which we see the children abused, physically and sexually, by their own families. Tossed aside like bad meat. Told they were the sinners. How many times do you have to hear such things before you begin to believe it's true? Can you ever forget and let go of the torture that you went through - both mentally and physically?
Oonagh herself is going through her own issues - pregnant with her married boyfriend's baby. Unwanted, she questions her own decisions and remember how her father told her she'd know the Devil when she saw him. I personally love Oonagh - her tenacity, her flaws, her inability to back down and let go of this story - even almost at the cost of her own life.
Looking forward to book two and continuing on in this series.
★★★★
This definitely does not shed a good light on the Catholic church, priests and the means that people went to in the 1950s (really not that long ago) to put problem children in their place. There were some harrowing moments and hard reads in which we see the children abused, physically and sexually, by their own families. Tossed aside like bad meat. Told they were the sinners. How many times do you have to hear such things before you begin to believe it's true? Can you ever forget and let go of the torture that you went through - both mentally and physically?
Oonagh herself is going through her own issues - pregnant with her married boyfriend's baby. Unwanted, she questions her own decisions and remember how her father told her she'd know the Devil when she saw him. I personally love Oonagh - her tenacity, her flaws, her inability to back down and let go of this story - even almost at the cost of her own life.
Looking forward to book two and continuing on in this series.
★★★★
Prologue
Glasgow, 1958
The body had been wrapped in a piece of torn sheet, then
stuffed into the box.
Sally
came in from the cold; stopping at the back door to stamp her feet and shake
off the wet earth caked to her boots. They were miles too big and tied around
the ankles with string. Her skinny wee legs were mottled blue with the cold.
She caught Irene Connolly watching her from a third floor window. Her face and
hands pressed hard against the glass. She shooed her away – gestured for her to
‘beat it’ – hoping to God she’d go back to bed before there was trouble.
Sally’s
footsteps sent the rats scurrying for cover as she opened the door. Tiny claws
scraped and clicked on the stone floor, their tails slithered like big, fat
worms. There were two boxes stored overnight in the pantry. She carried them
through and laid them on the table beside a third. Each held a similar bundle.
Tightly bound. Carefully wrapped. Like tiny Egyptian mummies, so small they
could easily fit into one box.
She
pushed a strand of hair from her eyes, wiping the sweat from her brow at the
same time. Despite the cold, beads of perspiration clustered on her forehead,
her thin shirt had become damp and it clung to her back from the sheer effort
of digging into the hardened earth out in the yard. Her small wiry frame
concealed a surprising physical stamina. The mental stamina came from knowing
no other way of life.
Some
said she was simple – ‘There’s a waant wi that yin,’ they’d say. Sally let them
think what they liked.
The
lid balanced precariously on top of the third bundle, which was still warm. It
took all her weight to hold it down in place. A tiny bone cracked under the
pressure, but she carried on regardless. She took a nail from between her teeth
and hammered it into the wood. She did this with all six nails before being
fully satisfied the lid was secure.
As
she wiped the sweat and mucus from her top lip, she stopped dead in her tracks.
She pushed her ear against the makeshift coffin and froze.
There
was no mistaking the tiny cries from within.
1
Glasgow, 2000
‘Take this, all of you, and drink from it.’
Father Tom Findlay held the chalice above his head. ‘This my blood…’
The
meagre congregation mouthed the words along with him. He looked out at his
flock and could have wept. There were a dozen at best. They were mostly old;
mostly women and most of them had nowhere else to go. All huddled around the
pews closest to the radiators. Still, at least he had a job.
He
took just one sip. Meticulously he wiped the rim of the chalice clean with a
linen cloth and handed it back to the old priest by his side, before walking
down the steps of the altar.
He
wanted to believe he carried the sacred body of Jesus Christ in his hands. He
wanted to, but couldn’t.
A
handful of people shuffled sideways out of the pews to get their daily bread.
He was desperate to give them more, but he really had nothing left to offer.
The
first supplicant was too frail to shuffle the few feet to the altar; he went to
her first. Walking over to her pew, he smiled, pretending not to notice the
faint smell of piss, masked by thick musky perfume.
‘Body
of Christ.’ He tried not to gag as he placed the communion wafer in her slack
mouth, and looked away when her ulcerated tongue licked the crumbs from her
parched lips.
‘Amen,’
she replied, then wound her shaky arthritic fingers round his, and bent to kiss
his hand. ‘Thank you, Father. Thank you, Father.’
Tom
felt like a complete fraud as he prised his hand away and left her rocking back
and forth, her milky eyes spilling with gratitude that the priest had gone to
all that trouble.
As
he turned to go back to the altar there was a collective sharp intake of breath
from the congregation. He turned as the old priest stumbled towards him and
fell to the floor. The weak autumn sunshine streaming through the stained glass
windows gave his ashen face an undeserved healthy pink glow. His catatonic
stare was fixed on the crucifix. Tom rushed to his side and felt for a pulse.
But there was none.
Father Kennedy’s frail body lay prostrate on the
altar: the ultimate offering. The gold chalice by his side. The puddle of wine
became a blood-red snake that trickled its way along the marble floor, reaching
out for him, pausing briefly to lick its lips before creeping into his white
cassock.
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