Books
Letting Go by Norma Harrs
Published on October 8, 2012
Available for download on various websites such as Smashwords and Kobo.
A collection of short stories exploring the foibles and weaknesses of the central characters: a woman looking for uncomplicated sex: an ageing Irish spinster has her dreams coming true in unexpected ways; a middle-aged man who finds out more than he ever wanted to know about his mother's secret life; a young abused girl who deals out her own kind of justice. Nothing is as it seems on the surface.
Where Dreams Have Gone
Published by Simon & Pierre
Available through Dundurn
Available for print purchase or download on various websites such as Amazon and Kobo.
Dreams vanish in most of the masterful stories that make up Norma Harrs' new
collection. A young Irish girl falls in love with an older married professor
and has her first date with heartache; a middle-aged woman attends her niece's
wedding and drunkenly surveys the wreck of her own life and love affairs; a young
woman admires her kind and beautiful neighbour so much that she is almost drawn
into a not so innocent profession…
Adversity, sometimes disaster, befalls Norma Harrs' characters, but instead of
destroying these people, it often miraculously enriches their existence, bringing
them a sudden awareness of what had been wrong with their lives and inspiring
them to make a fresh start.
Ms. Harrs seamlessly weaves together plot and evocative detail, wildly funny
turns of events and inconsolable sadness; her stories' earthy eroticism, their
startling vivid dialogue and, above all, their breathtaking original rendering
of suffering and joy will remain with the reader long after the final page.
Love Minus One & Other Stories
Published by Hounslow Press
available through Dundurn
Available for print purchase or download on various websites such as
Amazon and
Kobo.
Whether we are eavesdropping on the imaginative Saturdays of a Portugese cleaning
lady or living through a divorced woman's search for the elusive orgasm, Norma
Harrs manages in this collection of short stories to absorb the essence of her
narrator's psyche with the clarity of a good actress who gets under the very
skin of her characters.
"Love," either the absence of or the yearning for, is the theme that links the
stories in this collection together. Love for a family member, a friend, a lover,
or a husband, and sometimes the lack or reciprocity, is the element that gives
the stories poignancy and force.
The variety in these stories keeps the reader always guessing. The author doesn't
limit us to the easy answers, but brilliantly provokes us to enlarge our own landscape.
Available for print purchase or for download on the internet.
A Certain State of Mind
Available for print purchase or download on various websites such as
Amazon.
Author Sarah Caldwell has returned to her family home in Ireland to promote her
new novel when a chance encounter with a former lover brings about profound changes
in her life.
Norma Harrs' vivid description of social turmoil in modern Belfast acts as a
backdrop to Sarah's personal struggle with the conflict arising from her role
as wife and mother and the rediscovery of herself as a woman and lover.
'A Certain State of Mind,' is a story of love and a woman's determination to
know the truth about herself.