Boann

In any case, the tradition opens here toward old memory and ancient typology, where the cast of deities morphs continuously, promiscuously, and irrepressibly across boundaries and polities and times: Tiamat of Urduk and Marni Wata of the Fon, Boann of the Boyne and Gong Gong of the Xiang, Yam of Canaanite fame, Osiris of the cusp of Nile and the Sirens of ocean seduction in Greece, Agwe of Haiti and Ahti of the Finns, Sedna of the Inuit seas and the Kyrgyz Martuv, Tohora of the Maori and Paricia of the Inca, and the list goes on and on, as ribald and twisting as a strand of DNA in the mouth of a clam.

The names of its characters, Boann, Cian, Elcmar, Aengus, and Enya, read like a roll call of Irish folk myth and tales.

This novel follows the trials of Boann, the bright and resilient daughter of Oghma, a revered stone carver among the Starwatchers.

Dunn tells the story of Bronze Age Europe and one tribes resilience in the face of rampaging marauders that want to claim Boann and Cian's lands for their own, having to shove their thinking pursuits to the side to survive.