My Books

On a hill overlooking the grey sea, in a house filled with the past, a woman gathers her ghosts for one night to hear their story retold.

Born into the grotesque bustle of mid-twentieth century London she is drawn by her mother's past back to wild, coastal countryside in Ireland. Her own heritage is partly this and partly mystery which will never be solved.

She has loved deeply and lives alone. On the night of her beloved only son's departure from a house where she is to be left waiting for the unknown future, she tells the story of her life as it has been. She has cared and lost. That is her strength. She survives through her knowing and those who knew her.

Told in the tradition of the household bard, the folklore stream Irish people are imbued with, she invokes the lost souls, who were her companions up to this, who found each other to form a life apart, and sustained each other. This story does not shrink back from harsh contemporary realities, but the mythic element is the presence of the otherworldly, sustaining and informing the creatures of the margin, who see more than most eyes see.

Sive asks each one to be remembered and to live again through her story, to absolve her grief and feel her love, to inform her resolve, on a single night, on the edge of the future to come.

Anyone who wishes to die, whose suffering is too much, listen. Begin to tell your story. Stories are recovery. You will be heard. All it takes is one person to listen and you will survive.

Suzanne M. Power’s pieta moment came when she could not move any more. Nothing seemed possible. In that instant she found her own writing staring up at her, on the table of a waiting room, in an Irish therapy centre.

Beginning with her story, author and writing therapy practitioner Suzanne tells her own, and others stories of powerful survival.

Former mercenaries, prostitutes, rebellious nuns, mothers of kidnapped children, searching priests, other authors, mediums locating the dead, transplant patients, parents grieving for lost babies and adult children, orphans and prisoners, this book features their pain transformed to the most beautiful insight and example, all relatable to any reader’s life.

Taking inspiration from the Pieta, an image of spiritual source, artistic brilliance and human value, Suzanne looks at the dramatic ordeal of lives, the love growing from ravages.

All featured here, including the author, had pieta moments and found something timeless, unseen and upholding, which made a powerful sense of the terrible.

A dedicated encourager of creativity in others, Suzanne restored her own.