Best selling Draperstown author Christina McKenna has novels translated in seven languages

“The Godforsaken Daughter” is being talked about on both sides of the Atlantic and seems certain to match the huge success of her first, “The Misremembered Man”, and its follow-up, “The Disenchanted Widow.”

Christina’s story is one of triumph after much rejection. “If at first you don’t succeed,” she says, “just keep going. Never give up!”

That attitude is certainly borne out in the story of her steady climb to the top of Amazon’s literary charts both in the USA and UK, with sales heading towards the one-million mark.

Her novels have been translated into seven languages to date, and garnered over 5,000 customer reviews on Amazon — more than any other living Irish writer.

In America she is frequently credited with writing “literary page-turners” and compared to the like of Pulitzer Prize-winning authors Anne Tyler and Joyce Carol Oates.

Her inspiration is rooted in the soil of her childhood. She grew up on a farm near the village of Draperstown, “peopled by a troupe of weird, wonderful and often eccentric characters.”

Composites of those characters are what drive the narrative of her novels.

“When I sit down at the keyboard I see those people from my childhood who used to visit the family home.

“My dear mother was always in attendance with the tea and I hear their voices ringing down the years: the banter, the gossip, the laughs; that great sense of community and caring that existed back then, the hardships they suffered and the tremendous resilience of spirit they showed, that’s what I write about.”

Christina will be launching the novel on Thursday, 2 April, at the Bridewell Library, Magherafelt, 7.30pm.

“The Godforsaken Daughter”, published by Lake Union Publishing, U.S.A, is now available in bookshops and at Amazon.co.uk. Price £9.99. Sheehy’s of Cookstown stock all Christina’s books.