Draperstown author brings beauty of local area to life in latest novel

Draperstown-born writer Christina McKenna has published her fifth novel, and, like her previous bestselling books, she said she was hugely inspired by the the area she grew up in.

Since its release back in April, Mrs Purboy Takes a Chance, has been receiving five star reviews from readers.

Many have described the suspense novel, as 'a page turner' and a 'gripping read' while others have praised the plot and the characters which they said had them 'hooked from start to finish'.

The novel, which is set in the Spring of 1985 in the small, fictional Ulster town of Castlebrook, is a heady mix of crime, comedy, romance and retribution.

In the novel, two families are undergoing a sea change. On the wealthier side of town, Ellen Purboy is mourning the loss of her beloved husband. Following her doctor’s advice, she advertises for a tenant to occupy a suite of rooms in her stately home. A handsome young man responds, and takes up residence.
On the other side of town, Ma Bryn returns to her old trade of fortune telling. She’s influenced by a new phenomenon that’s sweeping Ireland: scores of people claim to have seen statues of the Virgin Mary moving.
But a dire threat is about to upset this small rural community when Vivienne, the daughter of a Belfast judge, goes missing. At the same time, Mrs Purboy is having to deal with things that go bump in the night in her mansion.

Christina became a bestselling author due to the popularity of her three books that comprise the Tailorstown trilogy. The first, The Misremembered Man, has sold almost one million copies and has been translated in many different languages.

The Ballinascreen woman began writing 18 years ago after she found herself at a loose end when a teaching contract ended.

After reading a voluminous self-help book, which had been gathering dust on a bookshelf, Christina was challenged by a statement within its pages: “If you have a talent, it is your God-given duty to use it and put it out there.”

Already a talented painter, Christina decided to follow her other passion – writing.

“Writing was something I’d loved, having honed my skills by writing letters home during the many years I worked abroad, so I had a duty to follow through and engage that part of myself that lay dormant, to see what would happen,” she said.

In 2004, Christina published her memoir, My Mother Wore a Yellow Dress, followed in 2006 by a book on the paranormal which she co-authored with her husband David M Kiely. A year later an American version of The Dark Sacrament was published, and, in 2010, Ireland's Haunted Women, featuring true-life accounts of hauntings across the island, was published.

With five novels under her belt and three non-fiction books, Christina is currently writing her ninth book.

Much of her fictional work is inspired by many places in County Derry, particularly in Ballinascreen where she grew up.

She draws inspiration from her childhood and the 'wonderfully eccentric' characters she knew back then. The fictional Tailorstown, Killoran and the seaside resort of Portaluce in her novels are based on Draperstown, Magherafelt and Portstewart.

“My two favourite subjects at school were art and English. The three-mile hike back and forth to Lisnamuck Primary School in the sixties gave me an appreciation of nature, which later translated itself into a love of landscape painting,” said Christina.

That artist’s eye serves her well as a writer also, most especially when writing descriptive passages on nature.

In ‘Mrs Purboy Takes a Chance’ she brings the beauty of the Sperrin mountains and Glenshane Pass into vibrant life with this: “… undulating hills rose and fell, stretched and sprawled as far as the eye could see. Rock chips gleamed in the lemony sunlight. Swathes of heather abounded, shifting from mauves to pinks as if being woven on some heavenly loom across the thick boggy peat of the landscape.”

Christina believes her latest novel is different to the others as it incorporates a few elements of the paranormal, it being set against the ‘moving statue’ phenomenon, which swept across Ireland in 1985.

“I was intrigued by the 'moving statue' phenomenon back then, and my interest was piqued once more while researching the book. Was it simply a case of mass delusion or was there something truly supernatural taking place?” Christina said.

“1985 was marked by an unusually wet summer hitting the farming community quite badly through failing crops. Did rural people need some sort of distraction to lift them out of such despair and so compensate by inventing the occurrence? Or was it real? Since they were largely ignored by the Catholic Church, and the media took a less than serious view of the whole affair, the moving-statues events soon disappeared from the public consciousness.”

For now though, Christina feels 'honoured' to have such a huge following of fans from right around the world, but particularly in her native County Derry.

“I feel truly honoured that my books continue to resonate with people all over the world,” Christina said.

“It is very gratifying to know that I’ve given voice to a period and a place in time—that little part of Mid-Ulster where I grew up - which might have otherwise gone unsung.”

Christina's latest novel Mrs Purboy Takes a Chance is available to purchase now on Amazon.

Christina McKenna: Fun Fact

To her bemusement, Christina became involved in international politics in December of last year when Lesia Vasylenko, a Ukrainian MP, went on Twitter to share a photo of a little boy with her 300,000+ followers.

She claimed that an “8-year-old named Marc” had recently survived a Russian artillery attack.

Unbeknownst to the politician, however, the boy’s image had already appeared on the cover of the Spanish edition of Christina’s bestseller, ‘The Misremembered Man’, in 2013.

After images of ‘El hombre en el olvido’ went viral, the lie was forced into the light and Lesia was compelled to remove the tweet.

Christina was more than intrigued that a work by an Irish author could make its mark on a battlefield so far, far away.

“My work was featured on the Russia Today news network,” she said.

“Something I would never have imagined. We are living through strange times indeed.”